TY - JOUR T1 - The primary care electronic health record: who's righting the software? JF - British Journal of General Practice JO - Br J Gen Pract SP - 152 LP - 154 DO - 10.3399/bjgp11X556443 VL - 61 IS - 583 AU - Wilfrid Treasure Y1 - 2011/02/01 UR - http://bjgp.org/content/61/583/152.abstract N2 - In 2008 my practice had to change from Synergy to Vision to comply with accreditation requirements. After training we found Vision disappointing and, in some ways, worse than Synergy. I wondered if anything was being done to keep an official eye on electronic health care records so I thought I'd look into it.Computers have largely replaced paper records in general practice in Scotland.1 This is, in many ways, a good thing but has the potential for unanticipated consequences.2 Accreditation is required for functionality in relation to administration, reporting, security, electronic data interchange, coding and certain aspects of prescribing, but not for other areas of clinical use.3 National guidelines by a range of authoritative UK bodies have set standards for clinical records4 and, in particular, for electronic health records (EHRs).3,5–9During 2009 I noted problems encountered both by my colleagues and myself in using components of our bundle of software. I excluded problems that were due to temporary technical faults or to lack of training and included those apparently related to software design. I studied the sequence of operations and windows involved in each problem. I then classified the problems and checked them against recommendations in national guidelines. I contacted guideline writers and systems suppliers, informed them of my findings and noted their responses. The forms of communication included: e-mail, face-to-face meetings, telephone conversations, and a poster and video at the annual conferences of The Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP) and National Vision User Group (NVUG) in 2009. I also created a website on which I published my work in progress.10 Before submitting this article for publication on 2 December 2010 I checked that the problems I describe below are still present in the software.The EHR in our practice … ER -