Richard Rathe, MD

Associate Professor of Family Medicine (ret.) and Medical Informatician

About Richard Rathe

  • Website: http://rathe.medinfo.ufl.edu/
  • Profile: Dr. Rathe joined the University of Florida in 1990 to develop the informatics program for the College of Medicine. Prior to his arrival, he completed a two year informatics fellowship at the Harvard School of Public Health. More... Follow me on Twitter!

 

Posts by Richard Rathe:

Thoughts on the Approaching COVID19 Pandemic

Posted: Mar 1st, 2020 •• Category: Medicine, Patient Care

I’ve annotated this NY Times graphic, rounding the estimates for COVID19 (aka the 2019 novel coronavirus) to 2% mortality and 2 people infected for every one who has the disease. What this suggests is the infection rate will be similar to a bad cold season, but unlike the common cold, a significant number of people […]

An Alternative Symptom Score to Replace the Overused 10 Point Pain Scale

Posted: Jun 22nd, 2019 •• Category: HPI, Medicine

If you take a 3pt functional symptom scale and couple it with a 3pt frequency scale you have a 3×3 grid that might work better than a one dimensional 10pt scale.

ShortNote – Clinical Shorthand 1.0

Posted: Aug 17th, 2017 •• Category: EMR, HPI, Patient Care

I have worked with home-grown and commercial Electronic Medical Records for over thirty years. The use of “dot commands” (a period followed by a trigger phrase) is about as old as personal computing. (I first encountered dot commands in the WordStar word processing program during the 1980s!) These commands generally fall into three categories: a) links to retrieve […]

Exemplary Teacher Award 2016

Posted: Apr 12th, 2017 •• Category: Teaching

  Thanks to My Students & Colleagues!

Patient Instructions Card with Advice on Common Problems

Posted: Aug 11th, 2015 •• Category: Medicine, Patient Care

Patients who are actively engaged with their health have better outcomes. Good communication is key. I made this Patient Instructions Card about six months ago and have been very pleased with it. I’ve turned it into a generic PDF with custom name, phone and tobacco resource fields. Fill in your particulars and have it printed at 50% on card […]

QuickHPI v1.2 – Fully Functional Client-Side Web App

Posted: Jan 30th, 2015 •• Category: EMR, HPI, Teaching

This is the first release of quickHPI for general use by students, residents and clinicians. It is based on version 1.1 with persistent client-side data storage added. Once installed, it can be used offline when network connectivity is unavailable or undesired. The purpose of quickHPI is threefold: 1) Provide a practical tool for clinicians; 2) […]

“Least Ink” Principal for Medical Documentation

Posted: Aug 12th, 2014 •• Category: EMR

The best clinical documentation is that which gives to the reader the greatest amount of information in the shortest time with the fewest pixels. Paraphrased from Edward R. Tufte The Visual Display of Quantitative Information  During April 2014 I gave a talk at an EMR meeting concerning the changes manifest in the everyday clinic note. […]

Atul Gawande “How do we heal medicine?”

Posted: Jul 30th, 2012 •• Category: Medicine

Cowboys vs Pit Crews Key facts from his recent TED talk… Modern doctors have 4000 procedures and 6000 medications at their disposal In 1970 it took 2 FTEs to care for a patient in the hospital In 2001 it took 15 FTEs to care for the same patient Checklists and mandatory pauses help decrease mistakes “We […]

The Supreme Court and Healthcare Reform – Careful What You Wish For!

Posted: Mar 23rd, 2012 •• Category: Medicine

The US Supreme Court is about to hear arguments for and against the recent healthcare insurance reform law enacted by Congress. (aka The Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare) At issue is the constitutionality of the individual mandate to buy health insurance. It is unclear whether they will set new precedent or rule on a much […]

Approach to Cough Algorithm and Podcast

Posted: Oct 19th, 2011 •• Category: Medicine, Podcast

I recently updated my lecture on cough, given to third-year medical students and residents. It presents an algorithm I developed based on the omnibus supplement published in the journal Chest and other sources. Here is a quick summary of key points that are often missed  by primary care physicians… Acute cough is largely due to […]