Hylafax

Some info (and screenshots) for window's clients for Hylafax.

http://www.mailmeanywhere.org/mmaHylafaxResource/docs/one-article-faxClient/

First big test of my new hyalfax installation.

Rang up the radiology, and asked them to fax me some reports on a patient I had seen recently.

Faxes arrived, and were stored in Hylafax. An automated script then copied them to another directory, and then ftp'd them to my server. Another script then took the incoming faxes ( now named by the fax sender number ), ocr'd them, and then inserted into my fax tables on Synapse EMR. An email was then automatically sent to me to alert me of the new faxes.

All worked well.. with the only hitch being Radiology sent the faxes to me upside down, so the ocr was all rubbish []

I've improved my fax script to do automatic rotation of the fax in 90 deg increments until it recognizes the text.

It then creates a "thumbnail" of the fax, and sends both the thumbnail and the final rotated tif to me by email, and also sends me the decoded text.


Since Gmail allows one to store up to 3Gb of email, I reckon that gmail could be used as a store for incoming faxes []

Some people say yes .. and others say no. Remember that there is no known case of where patient email has been intercepted.

But, to further reduce the risk, my script contacts google's email server directly bypassing the local ISP's smtp server.

Current Status:

• Faxserver receives fax
• OCRs fax and inserts into Synapse EMR server database with OCR text
• Sends email to advise of new fax, and attaches the fax with thumbnail, and the OCR text
• Can view the faxes in the Inbox ( new Faxes tab ) with the senders faxnumber
• Can delete faxes

To be done:

• Forward faxes to staff
• Annotate and fax onwards - just use windows stuff to do this

Fax forwarding to staff inboxes is now done.

There appears to be some open source software that allows you to look at faxes in the faxq, draw on them, and send them back .. shall investigate.

I was out of town yesterday doing my monthly rural clinic. It's a small town about 3 hours drive from my home base.

I needed an x-ray report from the clinic across the road from where I was .. but rather than ask them to fax it to me there, I asked them to fax it to me at my home base.

I was using a wireless broadband connection to my server ( 230 kbs ), and shortly afterwards, the fax appeared in my Synapse fax inbox

Hylafax - Graham .. which modem do you use ? Does it have any connection problems ... ie won't answer some faxes ?

It's an old external Motorola fax/modem 56k.

Answers all faxes.

How do you know ... is there a call log that might say "Unable to Connect" ?

There is a hylafax server log.