The difficulty that I see with the article about use and attitudes to a
hospital information system by medical secretaries, nurses and physicians
deprived of the paper-based medical record: a case report is that there is
no way of being sure that the use and attitudes were the result of the
system or the design of the system. It is possible the "independent
variable, the system" was not well designed for the nurses and physicians
and was more focused on doing the appropriate tasks of secretarial work.
The "independent variable" i.e. the system was not controlled in the
experiment.
That is the limitation of the conclusions and generalizations of this study.
It does not make the study worthless, that just keeps it in perspective to
the methods that are used in science to discover "true" knowledge.
Frank
Frank.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Tim Churches" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <openhealth-list@minoru-development.com>
Sent: Saturday, May 21, 2005 8:16 AM
Subject: Re: Attitudes of hospital workers towards electronic medical
records
Adrian Midgley wrote:
Comments against this study seem to be based on scientific research
models.
Is it not engineering, rather than science?
Social engineering? Or <wink>, sociology (which is neither science nor
engineering)?
Tim C
