Health IT Literacy - still inadequate in the world of GP's (and others)

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	Staff Writer articles by this author...
Editing and Researching news and stories about global and local Pharmacy Issues

In pharmacy, we take for granted that we have an email contact address.
Not so it seems in the world of GP's where it has been found that one third of GP's do not have a practice email address.
Worse still, those that do, seem to have a high level of incorrect addresses recorded at the local hospital. GP's still seem to find comfort in faxing documents and scanning documents into clinical files wasting time and effort (also money).
In this day and age it must be possible to have a regional system for a central database of contact details for all health professionals, that is audited on a regular basis.
As we move into a world of Medisecure and eRx, how will it operate to ensure everyone will at least walk with a uniform step?
It seems unbelievable that so many health professionals (not just GP's) seem unwilling or unable to embrace basic Information Technology systems to create a reasonable level of communication.
It is little wonder that $'s billions have been wasted in developing systems to share information privately and securely, because the IT education level of most health professionals seems to be inadequate.
Is this inadequacy being addressed in prime areas such as incorporation into university courses? Something needs be done.

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GPs lack email for discharge summaries
Source: 6minutes
http://www.6minutes.com.au/articles/z1/view.asp?id=510128

A fax is the GP’s preferred method of receiving a hospital discharge summary because many practices do not have an email address, despite high levels of computerisation.

In a study that pitted fax, email, post and patient hand delivery against each other, fax and email were found to be the most reliable method of a GP receiving their patient’s discharge summary, in randomised controlled trial of 196 geriatric patients at a Sydney teaching hospital.

The researchers found that most practices stored their information electronically, and almost 90% used medical prescribing software - but most still preferred to receive information by fax, meaning staff would need to manually scan documents to the patient’s file.

“When compared to fax, an email based system has numerous benefits. It allows near instant access to a true replica of a discharge summary, uncorrupted by the legibility problems of poor printing and scanning,” they write in the International Journal of Medical Informatics (online 25 Jan).

However it appears that using email for clinical purposes remains low among GPs, because over one third of practices in the study did not have an email address.

“...the Australian government is offering incentives to practices who have a secure messaging system to exchange patient clinical and medical information,” bridging the practice-hospital disconnect, the authors say.

A quarter of the discharge summaries in the study were lost and never reached the GP, because the hospital did not have the correct contact information. A solution to this would be a centralised database of up-to-date contact details, the authors suggest.