While I am not committed to any particular format of the portable electronic record (USB stick, CF card, CD-ROM, floppy, etc. or even a repository), I thought that most of us would agree that if we had more information about the patient's history (disease(s), states and previous treatments), we could perform our function better. I never dreamed that the problem would be too much information coupled with the inherent legal liability associated with the failure to digest all of it. This is an altogether different problem, one that I am not equipped to deal with, my sweaty friend.
It appears that we must provide a guidance to be used to format this record for the clinician, since I am certain that with the advance of technology, it will inevitably grow to a huge amount of data. We must develop a tool (or find ones that currently exist) that will enable us to "mine" such a wealth of information quickly and efficiently so that it may be put to a timely use. We should not be concerned with the mechanical format or technology used to hold the information. Of course, the data must be easily integrated into our local systems to be of a real value. I hope that we are not going to only save 5-10 minutes of clerical staff time. Are there existing protocols that would enable this data to be easily shared and updated across many different systems (DICOM, HL7, etc.)? Regards, Mike
