One might speculate that days of the written form are numbered, given the
increasing use of electronic requesting.
Ian Barlow

> -----Original Message-----
> From:	Breimer, Lars {PDC2~Welwyn} [SMTP:[log in to unmask]]
> Sent:	Wednesday, August 23, 2000 4:05 PM
> To:	'J.M. Pekelharing'; John O'Connor; ACB mailin
> Subject:	RE: Sept poll of the month/request forms
> Importance:	Low
> 
> Dear Friends
>  
>  
> A subject close to my heart.
>  
> Ten years ago I had the fortune to know the head of the forms design
> division of one of the major design companies in Europe. Her team had been
> responsible for the design of complex forms and questionnaires for a
> number of consumer orientated companies, including banks and insurance
> companies.  She and I put together a project to desing common clinical
> chemsitry lab forms for the NHS.
>  
> Unfortunately, in spite of approaching a number of different agencies, it
> was not possible to obtain the funding to take the project into pilto work
> in DGHs and teaching hospitals, and with GPs, and there was only so much
> the company could defray out of their public spiritedness.
>  
> It is good to learn a decade later that our friends in the Low Countries
> have been charting these waters.
>  
> Kind regards
>  
>  
> Lars
> Lars Breimer
> 
> MA PhD BM BCh MRCPath Dip Pharm Med
> 
> Clinical Science,  Global Drug Development
> 
> Roche Products Limited
> 
> 40 Broadwater Road
> 
> Welwyn Garden City,  Herts,  AL7 3AY,  U K
> 
> Registration Number 100674
> 
>  
>  
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: J.M. Pekelharing [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
> Sent: 23 August 2000 14:59
> To: John O'Connor; ACB mailin
> Subject: Re: Sept poll of the month/request forms
> 
> 
> There is a vast amount of experience with writing testnames instead of
> ticking the box. Our French colleagues could tell us much more of the
> effects of such a transition, as ticking became forbidden by law in
> France, as well as requesting more than five tests! It does not lead to
> less test requesting. It leads to more mistakes as the handwriting of the
> doctors is unreadible. It leads to fooling the system by the doctors by
> filling in a second test request form with tests nr 5 to 10!
>  
> Instead, we should move forward on the road of developing
> decision-oriented test request forms (Speicher CE, Clin Lab Med 1991; 11:
> 255-65). In the Netherlands, the laboratorians and general practitioners
> recently published the second edition of a national laboratory request
> form, tailored to the needs of the GPs (Pekelharing JM et al, Clin Chem
> 1996; 42: S247 (abstact; full paper under way)). It describes laboratory
> testing for 30 common situations encountered by the GP.
>  
> In our view, this is the way the development of laboratory testing should
> proceed. Not by replacing ticking by writing.
>  
> Maurits Pekelharing.
>  
> Dr. J.M. Pekelharing, PhD, clinical biochemist
> Reinier de Graaf Groep/Diagnostic Center SSDZ
> DELFT, the Netherlands.
> Tel.: 00-31-15.26.04.537
> Fax: 00-31-15.25.68.103
> Email: [log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]> 
> 
> 
> 


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