Government Healthcare Policy, Business and Technology

NHS hospital kicks off Axe the Fax initiative

Healthcare IT News:Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust is pledging to remove nearly all of its fax machines by 2019 amid increasing criticism over the NHS’s heavy reliance on outdated technology.

Legacy fax machines and the privacy, security and patient safety issues they potentially represent are not just a problem in the UK, either. In the U.S., Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Seema Verma last month called on hospitals and other healthcare providers to strive to be fax-free in two years, meaning by 2020. And in Australia, Queensland Health is amid efforts to eradicate fax machines, though a recent development in which Ipswich Hospital mandated that clinicians use only fax machines for urgent referrals shows how tricky eliminating fax machines altogether will be.

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