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Bill, with regard to characters that are, as you say,
"properly written," I totally agree with you. But, in healthcare, we are
very fortunate just to get Roman characters "properly
written."
People who are in a hurry, be they physicians,
PAs, nurses, or even pharmacists, don't take the time to
handwrite their words clearly, and this is despite the fact that
we are dealing with people's lives. It is just human
nature.
Old jokes aside, the problem lies with a
healthcare system of communication that allows handwriting at all.
What I should do is scan and post examples of prescriber
handwriting, and even show here some articles about the lawsuits and the
tragedies that have occurred due to misinterpretation of handwritten orders
. It is a major daily problem, not only for me, but for every pharmacist
who doesn't have the benefit of electronic medication orders, and that is,
still, almost all of us. In my hospital's pharmacy department, we spent a huge
amount of extra time just waiting to contact prescribers to clarify their
orders. Pharmacists have suffered with this situation since the profession
began. Fortunately, the status quo about to change, with the
arrival of all-electronic orders in the next few years. For my department, that
historic time comes on or about 25 January 2006, when our hospital begins to
implement it. Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Also, the sad fact is that there is some lack of
SI literacy, and also innumeracy, among many healthcare workers.
Typical is the inability to mentally process the relationship between the
milligram and the microgram. This difficulty most often occurs with the thyroid
hormone supplement levothyroxine, which is routinely ordered in either
milligrams or micrograms. I somehow believe that most Americans have no
problem instantly reading "$0.25" an interpreting it mentally
as twenty-five cents, but that facility may not exist with
micrograms.
Paul
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