title: Improving medical communication with facsimile (fax) transmission.
abstract: Facsimile machines (fax) used intensely in business, send copies of documents from one location to another. The medical potential for fax has not been fully explored. A general background in fax and the potential uses for fax between hospitals and within hospitals are described. Fax permits small hospitals to share the resources of larger hospitals and permits a large hospital to share resources more efficiently among its departments. The cost of a fax unit is small compared with the amount of work and time it can save. Clinics and private physicians may also find fax units cost effective. Fax boards, which provide fax capability to personal computers, are also described. The use of fax could streamline the process of patient transfer, telephone patient consultation, medical records retrieval, ECG interpretation, central information distribution, retrieval of medical literature, inpatient pharmacy orders, etc.
authors.affiliation: Department of Pediatrics, John A. Burns School of Medicine, University of Hawaii, Honolulu.
authors.forename: L G
authors.initials: LG
authors.lastname: Yamamoto
authors.forename: R A
authors.initials: RA
authors.lastname: Wiebe
mesh_terms: D003308:Copying Processes; D004636:Emergency Service, Hospital; D008490:Medical Informatics; D013689:Telephone