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WORDS: Donald M Berwick and David E Winickoff The truth about doctors' handwriting: a prospective study BMJ 1996; 313: 1657-1658 [Abstract] [Full text]

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Darin Colby   (19 May 2000)

The truth about doctors' handwriting

A Parker   (3 July 2001)

Request 19 May 2000
Darin Colby, Administrative Assistant Oregon State University Send response to journal: Re: Request	Is it possible to get actual samples of doctor's bad handwring. I have a presentation about this topic and the samples would come in handy. Email attachments work best or fax at 541.737.2686. Thank you. Darin
The truth about doctors' handwriting 3 July 2001
A Parker, Specialist Registrar Dept of Radiology, Princess Margaret Hospital, Swindon SN1 4JU Send response to journal: Re: The truth about doctors' handwriting	Editor- The widely held belief that doctors are afflicted with indecipherable handwriting has been studied extensively, with conflicting results (1,2). Legible and relevant clinical information on a radiology request card is essential to aid correct interpretation. We examined 207 plain x-ray request cards originating from both GPs and hospital doctors and found the vast majority (197, 95.2%) to be perfectly legible. 9 (4.3%) were legible with some difficulty and only 1 (0.5%) was truly impossible to interpret. Good communication between radiologists and clinicians is paramount and sometimes a report must be provided urgently by phone. We were interested to find that the main failing with regard to communication was not the quality of the handwriting but the provision of contact details. Although all the cards had been signed, a requirement under the IR(ME)R regulations (3), only one doctor had a signature that was readable. Of the 109 requests from hospital doctors only 18 (16.5%) provided both a pager number and a printed, legible name. 72 (66.1%) only gave one or the other and 19 (17.4%) failed to state either form of contact information. This problem did not arise with GP requests as our system reliably identifies the practice in question. In response to these findings, we intend to make changes to our request form so that the instruction "print name" is stipulated in addition to signature. In the future, installation of computerised ordering and digital radiology systems will enable automatic identification of the referring physician. Such electronic ordering is already established as a valuable tool in prescribing (4) and also carries further advantages such as the facility to publish guidelines on screen. This may, therefore, in addition to improving communication, reduce the number of requests for unnecessary investigations. Dr A Parker, Specialist Registrar, annajp@doctors.org.uk Dr N Ridley, Consultant Dept of Radiology, Princess Margaret Hospital, Okus Rd., SWINDON, SN1 4JU Conflict of Interest: None REFERENCES 1. Berwick DM, Winickoff DE. The truth about doctors' handwriting: a prospective study. BMJ 1996; 313: 1657-8. 2. Lyons R, Payne C, McCabe M, Fielder C. Legibility of doctors' handwriting: quantitative comparative study. BMJ 1998; 317: 863-4. 3. Department of Health. Ionising Radiation (Medical Exposure) Regulations, 2000. 4. Mitchell E, Sullivan F. A descriptive feast but an evaluative famine: systematic review of published articles on primary care computing during 1980 - 97. BMJ 2001; 322: 279-82.