Assimilating guidelines is a bad idea.
Sending raw guidelines in the hope that they will influence doctors
and nurse is a futile gesture.
See the BMJ from a couple of weeks ago fro the relevant picture of a
stack of guidelines.
However, if guideline authoring bodies pay for their production as
generic medical logic modules, able to be translated automatically into
EMIS Protocols, Meditel SOPHIES, Torex ISIS' and JAVA applets for
the newer XML/HTML/browser-based thin client systems then they may
well be doing us some good.
Much as one may sneer at Windows 95 tip of the day it does allow
people to absorb one or two bits at a time, and the Office Assistant
manages to present some of them related to context.
PRODIGY was one step in the right direction, but there are some more
to take.
The production of paper guidelinesis as indefensible a waste of NHS
resources as prescribing antibiotics for colds where there are known
to be no pathogens in the nasopharynx, and reading the things in
surgery time is worse.
--- OffRoad 1.9r registered to Adrian Midgley
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