Montana healthcare leaders want to want to ditch fax machines and build an "information utility" through the internet, according to an article on the MPR website.
Federal privacy laws say you can't just send medical records via regular email. So a lot of medical information ends up getting sent via fax.
"I think even today in 2016, healthcare is the last bastion of the fax machine. It's going to be the last place somebody pries a dead fax machine out to throw away. And we've got to figure out how to improve on that," said Dr. David Kendrick, a health information technology expert from Oklahoma.
The Montana Healthcare Foundation gave the Montana Medical Association a $50,000 grant to explore the viability of creating a new statewide health information utility. The Healthcare Foundation funds some healthcare reporting on Montana Public Radio.
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