brand logo

Fam Pract Manag. 2005;12(3):14-19

To the Editor:

It is hard for me to overlook the major conflict of interest in Dr. Robert Rowley’s article boasting about his clinic’s wonderful experience with their electronic health record [“Practicing Without Paper Charts,” February 2005, page 37].

If the view was from anyone else except the founder and chairman of the software company, then the article might have some credibility. The way it stands, it sounds too much like a free advertisement for his electronic records system.

Editor’s response:

FPM asks every author to complete a form disclosing conflicts of interest. We alert readers to conflicts that we consider to be material and reject articles where we deem the conflict to be too great.

Because Dr. Rowley’s article focuses more on the workflow changes that accompanied the introduction of an electronic health record system than on the merits of any given system, we did not consider the conflict of interest he had sufficient to justify rejection of the article.

WE WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU

Send your comments to fpmedit@aafp.org. Submission of a letter will be construed as granting AAFP permission to publish the letter in any of its publications in any form. We cannot respond to all letters we receive. Those chosen for publication will be edited for length and style.

Continue Reading


More in FPM

More in PubMed

Copyright © 2005 by the American Academy of Family Physicians.

This content is owned by the AAFP. A person viewing it online may make one printout of the material and may use that printout only for his or her personal, non-commercial reference. This material may not otherwise be downloaded, copied, printed, stored, transmitted or reproduced in any medium, whether now known or later invented, except as authorized in writing by the AAFP.  See permissions for copyright questions and/or permission requests.