[log in to unmask],Net writes:
>most dot matrix printers slow to a crawl when printing a graphic. This
>is a critical issue in the consultation where time is extremely
>precious. However most inkjets and nearly all laser will take printing
>a small graphic like a barcode in their stride.
THis might disadvantage users of the Brother dot matrix printers which
many or most Vamp Medical and even I gather Vision practices seem very
keen to hang on to.
It seems sensible to use something that lets computers read
prescriptions, but the developments in cheap OCR may mean that it is
just as simple to read the typed prescription as to read the barcode.
On th ewhole I would prefer to see the ingenuity of GP system suppliers
used to provide new and better ways of supporting GPs in their twin
aims of saving lives and making money, these being the people who face
(and sometimes pay) the bills for the products, whereas bright ideas
from the fraud supremos at the DoH seem unlikely to carry the money
required to develop them along with the idea or instruction.
If I find that I need to produce a bar code with prescription info in
it I am likely to publish the details of any solution I achieve, and I
suspect that the difficulty of an outsider finding a printer to put a
bar code onto prescriptions they are forging on a commercial scale is
not large. Therefore as far as fraud goes we are talking about
stopping people who hand alter a digit or add an item. THey are
usually quite obvious, not very expensive, and the reason they are not
caught is that Pharmacists do not want a major punch-up in their shop.
A technological solution is probably not the right one.
If one wishes to tackle dishonesty, I would agree that certain GP
system suppliers and the officials of the Department of Health could
indeed do a lot if they got together and made resolutions.
Definnnitely not Ewan, nor indeed anyone I feel inclined to name in
public at this time.
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