>>No one knows what the average referral contains and how useful the
narrative, rather than just a box ticking programme is. I need to see if the
average letter is packed full of info, what it does have and what it leaves
out.
I agree with the importance of the narrative but I suspect this may be
difficult to measure in terms of 'hard fact' that would be omitted in a
tick-box environment. Personally I simply prefer to read brief narrative and
can assimilate the info much more readily than a tick-box style page. I am
currently engaged in a wee research project looking at using 'clinical
scenarios' to prompt and assist with the creation of narrative, with
structured data, Read codes etc. being hidden within the narrative using
XML. This should allow a more 'human' approach to creating and viewing the
clinical info, whilst allowing for important structured/coded data to be
embeded and be machine readable.
Someone once sold me a nifty wee medical dictionary that can be used to help
spell-check and code-find!!
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