© 2005 BMJ Publishing Group Ltd & British Thoracic Society
EDITORIAL
PEF data plot
The PEF data plot: planning to get the message
Correspondence to:
Correspondence to:
Dr M R Miller
Department of Medicine, University Hospitals Trust, Birmingham B29 6JD, UK; martin.miller@uhb.nhs.uk
Work is needed to determine the best scaling for PEF data to enable patients and clinicians to get the most benefit from them
Keywords: peak expiratory flow charts; asthma; standardisation
| The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below. |
A large part of medical practice involves pattern recognition. A clinician may note that a few key aspects of a patient’s history, their demographic data, their clinical examination, and chest radiograph fit a pattern they recognise as making a particular diagnosis highly probable. This pattern involves more than one domain of data acquisition, and both within and between these domains our ability to recognise patterns may be affected by how the information is presented to us. If data are presented to us verbally, the ordering of this information may be crucial. For example, verbal instructions on how to get from ward A to ward B are easier to understand and use if they are given in consecutive order starting from ward A and ending up at ward B rather than the instructions coming in random order. The order in which a patient’s history is presented to a
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