Why Structured Language Works Against You

The Health IT industry thinks they are going to force doctors to express themselves using discrete data instead of Normal English.

We think they’re crazy!

How Structured Language works against you.

An EMR should make your life easier, not more complex.

If you believe that the current Levels of Service are already an insane, just wait until your EHR forces you to use ”structured-ese” rather than English to express your medical thoughts. When documenting medicine, absolutely nothing beats the English language.

Of course, as a physician you most likely already agree, or otherwise you would have gone to Engineering School!

The following is a critique of Structured Language by David More MB, PhD, FACHI:

http://aushealthit.blogspot.com/2006/12/is-snomed-ct-practical-usable-clinical.html

In his blog, Doctor More of Australia, quotes Professor Alan Rector from Manchester University:

“Unless we can formalise the mutual constraints ... HL7 v3 + SNOMED = Chaos'. 'The documentation is beyond human capacity ... to write or to understand'.”

For a wonderful presentation of Professor Alan Rector’s lecture, please download the following (MS Windows ® Powerpoint): click here

By following the amusing presentation, you will see immediately why structured language will not work... And, if you cannot follow the presentation, you will also see immediately why structured language won’t work!

For a full discussion on Structure Language and its detrimental effect on Medicine, please click here

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