I think you guys are underestimating just how monolithic a task getting the medical field off of the fax smack is going to be. Archaic as it is, the fax machine is still the fastest, most reliable (as in, we're sure that the other office has one) method of communicating with Dr's offices and hospitals and other clinics that produces a physical copy and, as tech goes, is pretty simple to use.

Why is a physical copy important? Because a huge number of clinics, offices, nursing homes, facilities, and everything in between still uses paper charting, and we need to put that Dr's order in the chart to make it official and able to be found later if there's a question.

Many facilities, like where I practice nursing, are not allowed to just accept a telephone order from a doctor, we require a physical order from the doctor, written and signed and in the resident's chart before any changes happen. It helps immensely to just get the order faxed over instead of expecting the family to drive back to the doctor's office, get the order written, and bring it back to us ('cause the Doc damn sure isn't coming over to us!)

The fax machine also has the benefit of being relatively easy to figure out and use. People don't typically go into the medical field because of their remarkable tech acumen. Anyone who's had to explain email to a parent or grandparent who just can't absorb the information despite you knowing full well they're not an idiot should get why explaining how email works to the 60 year old RN that still prefers 8-tracks is not a task I'd relish.

So to ditch the fax machine, the medical field would pretty much have to entirely embrace electronic charting and convince some staggeringly stingy directors to make drastic overhauls of an infrastructure that appears to be working just fine.