Stacey Tinianov, Executive Director at Advocates for Collaborative Education, shared a post by Grace Cordovano, Co-Founder of
Unblock Health, adding:
“Ugh.
Grace summed it up perfectly, “While everyone is talking about all things AI, patients are suffering waiting on faxes and while care providers play fax ping pong.”
We are identifying and solving complex problems at a cellular level, we are digging through immeasureably large datasets to find patterns that can evolve into solutions, and yet… our healthcare system remains dependent on technology that was phased out of most industries nearly 30 years ago.
Getting people the prescriptions they need in a timely manner should be a no brainer.
We need Interoperability or just plain pick-up-the-damn-phone operability”
Quoting Grace Cordovano‘s post:
“A patient with advanced cancer has treatment-related nausea and vomiting and needs a refill on their anti-emetics.
The patient contacted their oncologist via the portal and by leaving a message with the receptionist on Sept 8th (over a week ago).
A lot of nausea and vomiting has happened since then, the patient can’t keep anything down, has lost weight, is likely dehydrated, and now we are hoping to avoid the ER.
Tired of leaving messages, I drove to the pharmacy on behalf of the patient. The patient is too sick to leave their home.
Pharmacist said they are waiting for a refill to be approved and that the prescription on file expired. Said a fax was sent Sept 8th, over a week ago to the dr. I called the dr from the pharmacy and the receptionist said they never got the fax.
While everyone is talking about all things AI, patients are suffering waiting on faxes and while care providers play fax ping pong.
I put the call on speaker, handed my cell to the pharmacist and told both the pharmacist and the oncology nurse that I’m not leaving without these prescriptions.
An hour has gone by waiting for the fax to be resent. I called the Dr back.
They are having problems with their fax machine.
This is unacceptable.
We need to get the basics right so patients, PEOPLE, do not fall through the cracks on simple things that can and do turn into a 5 alarm fire when left unattended.
Still sitting waiting here. [Cue Wolf of Wall Street “I’m not leaving.”