Patient Safety Task Force©

The Importance of Legible Handwriting:

The Patient Safety Task Force assembled a group of articles addressing the issue of physician handwriting. These articles were published in the Journal of the Kentucky Medical Association. The articles discuss the legal implications of illegible handwriting, as well as the complications of receiving payment from payers caused by illegible handwriting.  The four articles in the series are:

"The Importance of Legible Handwriting" by William P. VonderHaar, MD

"Do You See What I See? Illegible Handwriting Can Cause Patient Injuries" by David O. Hester

"Legible Handwriting: A Medicare Perspective" by Bryan A. Loy, MD, MBA

"Handwriting Errors: Harmful, Wasteful and Preventable" by Anne Bruner and Morton L. Kasdan, MD

"Study on Death Due to Medical Errors 'Flawed'" by William P. VonderHaar, MD

In this article, Dr. William Vonderhaar, former Chair of the Patient Safety Task Force, addresses an editorial published on August 21, 2000, by the Courier-Journal concerning the study conducted by the Institute of Medicine (IOM) on deaths due to medical errors.