AUTO-FAXING IMAGING REPORTS TO REFERRING PHYSICIANS

One of the major service issues within Medical Imaging is delivering r eports quickly to referring physicians. As an effort to improve servic e, Mount Sinai Hospital's Department of Medical Imaging implemented Au to-Fax to distribute imaging reports to physicians instead of the post al service. When a report is transcribed and then verified by the dict ating radiologist, the radiology information system will automatically fax the result report to the referring physicians if subscribed to th e Auto-Fax service. If not, the report will be printed and mailed out manually. A transmission log is kept recording the requisition number, time, date, fax number, number of pages, and transmission status of a ll reports fared. The system will try three times to fax the report. I f unsuccessful at all attempts, the report will be printed and sent ou t by mail. Referring physicians are required to sign an agreement that the receiving parties are responsible to ensure transmitted reports a re kept confidential. Over 150 referring physicians have signed on for the service. Initial problems with missing cover pages, missing repor t pages, and reports not being received by physicians have been resolv ed. A recent survey of physicians receiving reports by Auto-Fax indica te that the service is very popular and has increased the speed with w hich transcribed report are received. Suggestions for improvement incl uded faring reports in batches, at specific times of the day, and dire ctly to personal computers. Challenges reported included photocopying thermal paper faxes and sorting reports (for those offices with shared fax machines). Copyright (C) 1997 by W.B. Saunders Company.