Probability theory...

...applied to clinical documentation

Here comes a perfect coin-tossing introduction to my upcoming sequence on clinical documentation. I came across this on Dr. Voice’s excellent blog. It’s part of one hilarious questionnaire developed by Joe Boyce (MD - CIO/CMIO at Heartland Health, St. Joseph MO) for the currently developing Medical Informatics Board Certification. Here is question #10:

Documentation – which of the following groups are most likely to complete their notes at the point of care?

1. ED physicians with Scribes (assume the ED physicians still enter the room)
2. Orthopedics with voice recognition (assume your orthopods have evolved to speaking)
3. Internal medicine docs with a laptop and selection of branching templates via telemedicine. (assume your network will remain stable for 15 minutes)
4. Residents with iPads, Bluetooth headsets, Kinect 3D mapping, and cell phones (assume they have not done a startup and retired already)

Click here for Boyce’s full questionnaire. I guarantee you won’t regret this 5-minute break between two surgeries / EMR reboots.