Electronic patient records in primary care: Study has serious flaw

doi:10.1136/bmj.327.7415.622-b

BMJ 2003;327:622 (13 September), doi:10.1136/bmj.327.7415.622-b

Letter

Electronic patient records in primary care

Study has serious flaw

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

EDITOR—There is a serious flaw in the design of the studyby Hippisley-Cox et al on electronic patient records in primarycare.¹ The authors say that they intended to differentiate betweenmanual (all records kept on paper) and combination (part electronicand part paper record keeping) but actually differentiated betweenpaperless (electronic) and paper based (combination or manual)records. The findings are therefore questionable.

For example, given that most general practitioners routinelyprescribe electronically it is difficult to believe that paperlessrecords were more likely to specify the drug dose unless Hippisley-Coxet al were reviewing only the paper based components of theirpaper based group, as opposed to the full record.

Additionally, Hippisley-Cox et al conclude that paperless recordscompare favourably with manual records. This is an extremelypositive conclusion given that they specify one of the mainreasons as to why general practitioners prefer to use . . . [Full text of this article]

N T Shaw, research scientist

Centre for Healthcare Innovation and Improvement, E414A—4480 Oak Street, Vancouver, BC, Canada V6H 3V4 nshaw@cw.bc.ca