Re: [Gnumed-devel] Request For Comment

[Jim Busser]

On 4-Mar-09, at 2:47 PM, Karsten Hilbert wrote:

> I would think the "-" is just about the right balance
> between an empty field (which can mean several things) and
> "0" (which needs to be brain-parsed explicitely).

A patient yesterday had no concept of decimals when I tried to  
explain the prescription helpfully pre-formatted by the hospital  
system at discharge.

Mine may not be the only patient who had trouble understanding that

        0.5 tab means half
        2.5 tab does not mean 25 tabs

It is realistic to support a mapped substitution system so that

        0.5 can be instead instructed as "one half"
        0.25 as "one quarter"

I wonder whether it would be in the step of selecting a printout  
"format" that the clinician would decide what a particular patient  
needs?