The first fax machine, known as the **pantelegraph**, was invented by the Scottish inventor **Alexander Bain** in **1843**. Bain's device used synchronized pendulums to transmit images over telegraph wires, making it the precursor to the modern fax machine.
The first practical fax transmission took place later in **1865**, when the Italian inventor **Giovanni Caselli** improved on Bain's concept and successfully sent an image over telegraph lines between **Paris** and **Lyon**. Caselli’s pantelegraph was used commercially and was able to transmit handwriting and simple images, making it the earliest form of fax communication in regular use.
The use of faxing in disseminating information in medicine should have been stopped a long time ago. It is a joke. Like it says, the first fax machine was invented in 1843.
They are slow. It can take 15 minutes or longer to send a 150-page document.
They are NOT HIPAA compliant. Anyone can be at the other end. Who knows who gets it. And anyone can go outside of your office and tap into your fax line and read faxes all day.
They are a waste of time. Someone has to physically get up to send faxes. Someone has to physically get up to receive faxes.
Those who are behind the times still have to print out a document to paper to fax it.
Faxes crash into one another. We have two fax lines and faxes crash into each other all the time.
You get an answer almost as often as transmitting.
A good fax machine is expensive.
You don't know if the receiver got the fax, and they are way too lazy to let you know.
It's like using a dial telephone.
It's a joke using them.
I have a rather inexpensive email program that can do tons of things including sending emails securely including the attachment. And it tells you when it got there successfully. AND IT TELLS YOU WHEN THEY OPENED IT. You can many things with it including sending a note on the email with DISAPPEARING INK.
You can send the document in seconds. You send it directly to one person. With AI, I am sure the entire process would be 500% better. With AI, it would be simple to know when they got it and when they opened it. No more offices telling you they didn't get your referral.
The problem is after the receiving office says they don't take records on Flash drives, CDs, email, etc. and only by fax. When I call them and ask them for their email address to send the record, they are shocked. Some offices do put their email address on the ROI sheet, and it is simple to send to them.
EVERY DOCTOR'S OFFICE SHOULD BE FORCED TO HAVE SOME TYPE OF ENCRYPTED AND SECURE WAY OF SENDING EMAILS.
Does this sound difficult? The government (with a few exceptions for some physicians) forced every office to get an EHR. They even paid for it although you had to do meaningless use. They could easily do this with email.
Even better, they could set up the whole thing by setting up secure servers where you send the record or document, and the other office is simply sent an email informing them they have an email. They simply reply with a password-protected method to get the record. The record would be there for you to take back if you need to. This is how the company that made Certified Mail over 20 years ago did it.
Email gets to the recipient 99.99% of the time. And it gets there in less than 10 seconds.
Still using faxes to send confidential information in 2024 is a joke.
