Hey Doc, Don't Kill Me

According to Time Magazine, sloppy handwriting kills over 7,000 people annually. Even worse, 1.5 million people are injured by the mistakes made while quickly scribbling abbreviations and dosage information on prescriptions.

I'm sorry, but this is unacceptable to me.

There have been so many advances in technology that this type of behavior should not be tolerated anymore, in any part of our country. After some quick research, I was able to verify that our very own Mayo Clinic has been using an electronic prescription system which "types out" orders for several years now. I would be interested to know if Olmsted Medical Center has a similar policy.

The article goes on to discuss a new free web-based service which will allow doctors to write electronic prescriptions for free:

The National e-prescribing Patient Safety Initiative (NEPSI) will offer doctors access to eRx Now, a Web-based tool that physicians can use to write prescriptions electronically, check for potentially harmful drug interactions and ensure that pharmacies provide appropriate medications and dosages. "Thousands of people are dying, and we've been talking about this problem for ages," says Glen Tullman, CEO of Allscripts, a Chicago-based health care technology company, that initiated the project. "This is crazy. We have the technology today to prevent these errors, so why aren't we doing it?"

I agree 100%. In the most technologically advanced country in the world, nobody should have to die (or be prescribed Viagra for a migraine) because Dr. Scribbly never learned to write.