Fax machines are wide regarded asinsecure , clumsy , and just generallyobsoletepieces of tech that deserve to be burned in effigy , not unlike a pot of theother shitwe think back from the early decades of technological innovation . But because bureaucracy ’s gon na bureaucracy , federal official ca n’t seem to stop relying on these pieces of outdated junk — and we ’re the ones left pay the price .
Case in level : to begin with today , the New York Times droppedthis piecedescribing precisely what pass when a facsimile machine based in a suburban Texas Health Department is face with the state ’s currentrecord - breakinginflux of Modern covid-19 vitrine — and of tests to march . As the Times report :
The political machine at the Harris County Public Health section in Houston recently became overwhelmed when one research lab sent a large mess of test results , spraying hundred of varlet all over the base .
Graphic:Brother UK/Flickr
“ envision the image of one C of facsimile issue forth through , and the machine just shooting out paper , ” pronounce Dr. Umair Shah , executive managing director of the section . The county has so far recorded more than 40,000 coronavirus cases .
The idea of a simple machine upchuck docs discover case after case after case is kind of an apt figure of speech for what ’s lead on across Texas right now . Even alfresco of Harris County , the nation ’s pace of hospitalization and deaths havecontinuedto climb , with the most late numberspointing tomore than 3,000 deaths ascribe to the virus . It ’s gotten bad enough that Texas Gov. Greg Abott walk back his previously wobbly stance on masque , realise themmandatoryfor most counties at the start of this calendar month .
( Emphasis on “ most . ” As of this week , there are stillnearly 80counties statewide that turn down to continue the mandate , hospitalization and death rates be damned . )
Naturally , though , more hospitalization intend more paperwork , and more paperwork intend more faxes . While clinic have have dependable about digitizing their workflows over the past decade , more often than not , their shiny Modern electronic systemscan’t quite meshwith their counterpart systems in the clinics in the next town over . That means they ’re stuck trust on ol’ faithful — the facsimile machine auto — to get these substance across . As one Travis - county - based doctor told the Times , their own office machine is currently cranking out around 1,000 test - come to fax per day .
But as anyone who ’s ever tried sending a facsimile can narrate you , pages fluttering onto the floor are the least of these clinic ’s job . fax can beblurredorleave chunksof someone ’s aesculapian criminal record out of the transmission entirely . Other times , printouts can be too dingy or too faint to even record . And as the doctor explain , tracking down all of that information take too farsighted to make any sort of contact - tracing cause worth a damn :
He has been rede those in the country with virus symptom to assume they are positive , since the tests take so long to come back .
“ When we are receiving results back 14 sidereal day after the person became symptomatic , it ’s not useful at all , ” Dr. Escott said .
Back in 2009 , the Obama administration did seek to draw out our health care systems out of IT hell with theHITECH act , which promised a $ 35 billion dollar mark investing to encourage , among other things , the adoption of electronic records in Dr. ’s bureau across the res publica . The act has widely proven to be something of aflop , in part because it left public health departments off the table , meaning they had to upgrade their tech themselves — something that none of them couldreally affordto do then , and still ca n’t now .
Coming back to the present twenty-four hours , that means doctors in Texas and elsewhere who might want to , say , beam their science lab tests to just about anyone who is n’t another MD in the state is stuck still using faxes to do so .
Before covid-19 remove , this might not have been a major outcome , but just abouteveryoneagrees that a nationwide pandemic requires requires all department — upgraded or otherwise — will need to go together to get thing under command . That does n’t only mean agreeing to wear a goddamned masquerade and last out away from other people , but give our healthcare official enough money to actually mistreat into the same century as the balance of us .
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