Paperwork can cause problems.
If notes get lost then a patient’s personal details could be revealed and the care that they receive might be hampered if their practitioner has to go on a treasure hunt for their records.
- Originally published 5th March, 2012
Many GP surgeries routinely scan in correspondence and other bits of paper into a unified electronic database to help reduce the paper load.
The system would be great if everyone had access to it. Like the specialist, the hospital nurse the pharmacist …
But just as every hospital seems to have a different uniform or slightly different set of paperwork they all seem to have different computer systems and technical solutions too.
This can make the experience fractured.
I am optimistic that technological progress will eventually make it simple for everyone, no matter secondary or primary care, to access the same information about a patient. But will this just cause more problems?
It’s not just the health service that has been implementing technological wizardry.
Universities also play their part. A student from another university told me that he doesn’t sit in lecture halls anymore but sits in front of his computer where the lectures are broadcast online. In his opinion, the thought behind is sound, delivering high-quality lectures to a large number of students but it makes other things difficult, like asking questions …
What are your experiences of university teaching and technology? Do you download learning off an intranet? Does it work?
I record lectures on a dictaphone and share them with my peers using online file storage. And I spend my time commuting not listening to the radio but writing articles and revising.
While technology hasn’t completely leveled the playing field for every student it certainly does enable more people to have access to information than ever before.
How do you use technology to help you as a student? Or does technology just get in the way?
