POLL: Doctors, do you like your fax or is it time all should go digital?

Ontario’s Ministry of Health has vowed to get rid of faxes in healthcare. “It’s time we finally axe the fax,” says a document, Your Health: A Plan for Connected and Convenient Care, released last year. “The Ontario government is replacing antiquated fax machines with digital communication alternatives at all Ontario healthcare providers within the next five years.” The ministry reiterated that in April of this year in its Helping Family Doctors Put Patients before Paperwork news release saying replacing “fax machines over the next few years (will) speed up diagnosis, referrals and treatments while improving the privacy of patient’s health information.”Read: Dr. Howard J. Goldstein: Just the fax, ma’amStill, a CBC article last year noted the ministry says Ontario healthcare providers send an estimated 152 million faxes each year and the Ontario Medical Association says more than 90% of doctors still use fax machines.Many doctors challenge the idea that faxes are antiquated arguing that servers get hacked and faxes are a secure way of communicating. But the province's Information and Privacy Commissioner says misdirected faxes are the primary cause of unauthorized personal health information disclosures in Ontario.Read: Sorry, wrong number? How three doctors, one surname and multiple fax machines added up to privacy leaks for 109 patientsAs well, many pharmacists and doctors say they find faxing convenient as it is part of the workflow.Of course, the fax machine remains prevalent in Ontario because the province’s doctors, hospitals, labs and pharmacies use a variety of electronic medical record systems that often cannot communicate with each other as effectively as faxes do. Still this means staff are often having to manually re-enter the information they received by fax into an electronic system. The biggest challenge in transitioning away from the fax machine will be determining who will bear the cost if the digital communication platforms that replace it are expensive, many healthcare providers say.What is your opinion?

POLL: Doctors, do you like your fax or is it time all should go digital?

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