And I remember playing Where in the World is Carmen Sandiago? And the originial Sega Genesis…I was the Queen of Super Mario Brothers and Sonic the Hedgehog….

Among the hospitals that call me in to prevent medication errors (by giving handwriting classes to the doctors), a fairly high percentage claim to have “computerized everything” 1 or 2 or 5 or more years ago … yet they still call for help with handwriting, because of a crucial 1% to 5% of handwritten documentation that just won’t go away.

Doctors in “totally computerized” hospitals still scribble Post-Its (and not just one-sentence Post-Its, either) to slap onto the walls of the nurse’s station, still scrawl notes (often two or more sentences in length) on the cuffs of their scrubs during impromptu elevator/corridor conferences with colleagues … and, most of all, doctors with computer systems often have the ward clerks operate the computers, use the Net, or whatever: working, of course, from the doctors’ illegible handwriting on medical record sheets. Many record entries take more than one sentence: and the clerk usually has to decipher numerous pages of entries in one sitting.
Bad doctor handwriting, incorrectly deciphered by ward clerks using the computer for any purpose, thereby enters the computerized medical record.

And what happens when disasters knock out a hospital’s network? More than one hospital, during Hurricane Katrina, lost its generator, its electric power — and therefore its computer system — for the duration.
Even the computer-savviest staffers in the disaster zone had to use pens. Let’s hope they wrote legibly.

Kate Gladstone
CEO, Handwriting Repair handwriting improvement service
Director, World Handwriting Contest
http://learn.to/handwrite
and
http://global2000.net/handwritingrepair