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In the Beginning: VoiceEM Back in 1988, Ray Kurzweil came out with speech-recognition software, including something called VoiceEM. It was an emergency medicine physician charting application; there was also VoiceRAD for radiology. These were DOS programs that ran with that typical DOS 80 character x 25 character text screen. In addition to having a medical-specific vocabulary, VoiceEM had […]

When using a point-and-click medical charting application (of which there are a zillion, and I think I’ve used maybe a half-zillion) there are many designs, but I’ve recently realized there is a way to divide them into two types. There are one-layer charting apps and two-layer charting apps. I’m not talking about computer layers, I’m […]

What’s in a word? That which we call a rose By any other name would smell as sweet. Romeo and Juliet (II, ii, 1-2) OK, I cheated. I changed “name” to “word.” It sounded better for the purposes of this essay, which is about the need to choose words carefully. Yes, I changed a word […]

The Whorf-Sapir hypothesis says that our language shapes how we think. It’s been moderately debunked in recent decades, but it’s likely true, at least in small part. And one of those small parts is when someone coins a new word that encapsulates a new idea. There has been a debate within philosophy since Plato’s time […]

“This job would be great if I didn’t have to chart.” Physicians say this all the time. One way to not have to chart (much) is to work with a Federal Disaster Medical Assistance Team (DMAT) team. Although the National Disaster Medical System now has an electronic medical record (EMR) system, it used to just […]