Greg Twyford wrote:

> My other observation that you haven't commented on, is the needs of the
majority of your colleagues who aren't enchanted with learning more about the
technology. They are the group I overwhelmingly deal with in both my Division
role and my support/consulting business on the side.
> They will only ever benefit in a highly distilled way from what goes on in the
list, valuable as it is for the likes of us.

The docs and staff at our surgery are no more or less IT literate than any 
other around the country. They continually ask me how to do stuff. (e.g. "I mark
the spam as junk in thunderbird but it keeps coming back. How do I get rid of
it?") The standard answer I give is, "Send me an email." As you know, this has
several effects. It forces them to formulate the question they wish to pose and
in doing so they answer it themselves half the time. The second thing it does is
provide me an excuse to cc the rest of them since half of them will be
experiencing the same problem. We have yet to progress to the third stage where
they may send a group query to start with and more than likely get a quicker
response than by directing it to me alone.

I agree with you that doctors are generally not IT literate but they may invest
some effort in a technology if they think it will be of benefit to themselves.
The Medical Director bulletin board seems to have a moderate amount of activity
from your average GP user. Many of the posts there are widely read. Argus could
similarly benefit. (Note a mailing list is much more useful than a bulletin
board, particulary if it has searchable archives.)

> The holy grail of secure clinical messaging is still a very long way off for
the majority, unfortunately. But keep playing with the toys, as some of them
will become tomorrow's solid stuff.

OK.

David



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