>> that the signature 'disappears' once in their respective EHR. > >(With the greatest respect) *does anybody really care?* > >How does all this 'legal signing' actually improve the treatment given >to the person who this is all about, the patient?
With the greatest respect, I totally agree - I can't see one iota how the signing issue impacts on patient care. Unless of course, the signed electronic referral did not reach its intended destination, and no one followed up with the patient to make sure they attended the specialist, and no one knew what those failed acknowledgements meant or one of them slipped through the crack. And the patient died. All the nicely legally signed or unsigned documents in the world wouldn't matter a whit. I suppose there's always the possibility that some lawyer picks it apart and finds any 'unsigned' referrals and tries to make a big deal out of it. But that's a whole other minefield and it's also been discussed before on the list. I was just trying to get my head around the technical bit of signing a bit better than when this was discussed on the list a year or two ago and, thanks to Ross, Andrew and Horst, I am a bit clearer on the process now. While I always understood the importance of backing up the Argus or MO database, it would seem more so now and to periodically test restore and retrieval from your backups of these apps too. Although it certainly does seem trite and silly, it's the legal requirement for now for electronic referral albeit the reason many will continue to put a signed piece of paper in the patient's hand instead. Thanks to all for the input, Jan _______________________________________________ Gpcg_talk mailing list [email protected] http://ozdocit.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/gpcg_talk
