March 9th, 2006: Insulting computerised notes regarding a customer of a U.S. pharmacist slipped through the system and have been presented to the woman in question. She is sueing.

By Tim Smith

The argument about document management, ILM, ECM, identity management and other aspects of the image and data management industry all crumple into a heap once the human element is thrown into the mix.

Ms Janey Karp of Palm Beach in Florida, who has suffered depression and anxiety for many of her 53 years realised this when notes included in the Drug Utilization System (DUR) printout used by the Walgreens pharmacy were presented to her along with her prescription medication.

The computer printout labelled Karp as 'CrAzY!' and continued to malign the lady, 'She's really a psycho!!! Do not say her name too loud, never mention her meds by names…

Karp began legal action against the pharmacy chain on Tuesday, citing defamation, 'intentional infliction of emotional distress' and 'negligent supervision'. She pointed out that, "A person has the right to have whatever medications they're taking to be private. I'm so private that I never talk about my medications and now they're telling me that I'm psycho, crazy."

Walgreens appointed a Carol Hively to investigate the case. It appears that Ms Hivey's understanding of the system maybe accurate, while her understanding of client relationships may leave something to be desired. She is quoted widely as commenting that such notes are intended for internal use as reminders to the pharmacist.

The Drug Utilization Review (DUR) system used in this case runs as a Point Of Sale (POS) utility. According to the Pharmacy Society of Wisconsin," In order for this system to work effectively though, pharmacy providers have to help Medicaid by accurately entering data into the claims adjudication fields… The claims data is then consolidated to produce the accurate patient profiles… "

Obviously, the cause of Karp's distress was not the computers, storage or document and records management themselves. It was potentially the most fault-prone element of those systems - human error. This has sent a news story around the world, encouraging yet more fear uncertainty and doubt (FUD) with regard to the management of personal records, has added more anxiety to an individual already weighed-down enough to require medication from a trusted source, and resulted in yet another law suit.

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