Summer's no vacation for pediatricians

Pediatricians know it's summer when the health forms start piling up.

For everything from day care and camps to college and driver's license applications, each form asks different questions and often requires handwritten answers.

"It's overwhelming, particularly in the summer" when camps, school, and sports seasons converge, says Jeffrey Bomze, a pediatrician whose Bryn Mawr practice sees around 3,000 patients a year. "It's not just a signature and out the door."

Every year, pediatricians typically see about 95 patients per week, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics. At nearly 5,000 patients per year, four health forms per child, and about eight minutes per form, that means one person could spend 333 workdays a year on health forms alone.

And it's getting worse.

"It's been a bane of pediatricians for years," said Bomze. But "nowadays, with liability issues, people can be very paranoid and concerned," leading doctors and nurses, who do most of the form work, to take extra care to protect themselves.

So what can be done to fix the problem?

Online medical records or e-mail communication between pediatrician's offices and schools could help cut postage costs and wait times, suggested Bomze. So would standardized forms like those used by sports leagues.

Pennsylvania does have an immunization registry that physicians and schools can tap into to prove that a child has been vaccinated, said Suzanne Yunghans, executive director of the American Academy of Pediatrics' Pennsylvania chapter. But it's unlikely anything will happen because there's no one "with the authority to pull people together and say 'let's come up with a common form,' " she said.

http://www.philly.com/inquirer/health_science/weekly/20090727_Summer_s_no_vacation_for_pediatricians.html