Journal of Postgraduate Medicine Medknow Publications and Staff Society of Seth GS Medical College and KEM Hospital, Mumbai, India ISSN: 0022-3859 EISSN: 0972-2823 Vol. 46, Num. 3, 2000, pp. 244

Journal of Postgraduate Medicine, Vol. 46, No. 3, July-September, 2000, pp. 244

Software Review

LabLetter

Anirudha Malpani

Consulting Gynaecologist, Mumbai, India, malpani@vsnl.com

Code Number: jp00083

LabLetter
Availability:
CyberNiche Software, 4271 Carlisle Road, Gardners, PA 17324, USA.
Web: http://www.cniche.com
E-mail: cniche@cniche.com
System Requirements:
IBMs and compatibles running Windows 3.1 or greater, Windows version 3.1 or greater.
Cost:
Demo version is free (http://www.cniche.com/labletter/index.htm) $75 US to register plus shipping
Intended Users:
Doctors who need to type their own letters

Most doctors hate to type, and as a "one-finger typist" I was very keen on seeing how LabLetter for Windows could help me to reduce the amount of typing I need to do. LabLetter is supposed to minimise typing needs, and is sold as a program " which helps doctors to produce letters to inform patients of the results of lab tests."

Features

This is a simple program, which provides readymade text, which the doctor can cut and paste, in order to write a letter to his patients when informing them about test results.

The Upside

It minimises typing, by allowing the doctor to insert readymade text into the letter (e.g. " Your CBC , or complete blood count, is normal" or " Your EKG is normal"). The program offers many readymade sentences, and offers flexibility in that the doctor can customise it by creating and adding more of his own. The demo program is "shareware" and can be downloaded free of charge. However, the shareware version prints the line, "This is a demo version for evaluation purposes only" on each page, limiting its utility in real life.

The Downside

Most doctors in India are not used to writing letters to patients to inform them of their test results, so this program is unlikely to be useful to most doctors practising in India. The program costs US $75, and this is exorbitant, considering the very limited utility this program offers. In fact, any doctor familiar with using a modern word processing program could easily duplicate the features of this program, by using facilities such as the AutoText which Microsoft Word offers.

Recommendations

While the intent of the program is commendable, since it has been designed to minimise the typing the doctor needs to do, this is not a useful program for most doctors. Voice recognition software which does away with keyboard typing altogether is far more versatile, and other programs such as PAIGE (PAtient Instruction GEnerator) from Mad Scientist Software are far more valuable and comprehensive.

Anirudha Malpani

Consulting Gynaecologist, Mumbai, India malpani@vsnl.com

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Copyright 2000 - Journal of Postgradate Medicine