| Hubris | Designing GP Clinical Systems |
However, one of the excuses not raised here so far has been a comparison with what has not been done in the same area with paper records.
How much has been done to make Practice (uncomputerised) C's records assimilable by Practice D? And how much should be done.
In the specific area of ante-natal records a common
interchange format was worked out long ago. The triptych
card, 6* A5, was a model of design of an appropriate
record, with fields and tables for the appropriate minimum
data set, and with enough formatting to make the
handwritten contents of each field usually decodable from
context.
Although there have been regional variations in how the
record is used in general any user in the UK, and most
in the world could pick one up and continue using it, with
benefit to the next recipient and the patient.
Some groups of travellers have been given minimum dataset records to carry, and generally look after them well.
Designing partial records along these lines would have been a reasonable approach, another lost opportunity.
None of this seems difficult to duplicate with a computerised record.
Inevitably the results are inferior in effect, and require considerable duplication (or in most cases reduplication and sometimes triple entry) of effort, maintaining effectively two record sets at each encounter.
We get to do most of the avoidable excess work, and we have been let down by those responsible for maintaining our IT in this respect.