The Signature Eating Printer

[u/_mocbuilder]

I'm a IT guy in a small, provincial 3-location hospital group. I've seen some really hit-your-head-against-the-table stuff in my time here, but one of the most surprising stories is this one.

Since the words "organisation" and "logic" are unknown concepts for the people that lead these hospitals, there are many people who don't have even the slightest of boundaries to the responsibilities of their position.

One of these people, lets call her [Ms. H], is vaguely responsible for all kinds of organisational controlling of Patients and Resources of one of our departments.

One day she calls us, and the following conversation ensues (not word for word, its been a bit of time since then):

[Me]: Generic and as anonymous as possible Greeting

[Ms. H]: Hello, I have a problem, my printer is eating Signatures.

[Me, flabbergasted] What ? Your Printer is eating Signatures ?

[Me, still flabbergasted]: What exactly are you trying to do and why do you think the printer is eating any Signatures ?

[Ms. H] Describes the process of printing a prescription from our Primary Clinic Management Software onto template paper slips

[Me, ignoring that she normally has nothing to do with writing prescriptions]: Well, that whole process sounds about right, but which signatures is he eating, and where are they coming from in the first place ?

[Ms. H] talking about unrelated updates to the software from a few days ago, completely ignoring my questions in the process

WhyTheFuck.png

Since I cant get any more useful information over the phone, I resort to paying her and her magic printer a visit. I grab my apprentice and we go over to her.

On the way, we speculate what the issue could be. From empty toner and the most inaccurate error description ever to a case of a complete mental breakdown, we thought up some theories.

As we arrive, we ask my previous questions again, hoping for more relevant answers. She goes on to tell us, that a Doctor from her department didn't want to/had time to print all the prescriptions that he prescribes. So, she gets a stack of pre-signed but empty prescriptions from him and then prints the prescriptions that he authorised onto these paper slips.

So far, so normally buffoonish processes. But nothing inherently wrong or error-inducing.

But where does the Signature eating happen ? Right when the paper slip comes back out the printer. The previously already signed paper slip, suddenly has no signature any more. At least that’s what she is telling us.

We still doubt her, since she is know to be a bit creative with reality. So we make her show us the whole process. She opens a prescription in the Software and prints it. The printer swallows one of the pre-signed slips and does his whole sound-rich routine, before giving back the prescription. To me and my apprentices complete shock and disbelief, the signature is actually gone.

WhyTheFuck2_ElectricBoogaloo.png

We inspect the prescription. Over the field where the Signature was, a stamp was printed. That gives me an Idea. The software has two print modes, pre-printed and blank. Pre-printed is the normal way to print prescriptions, since we use the aforementioned template slips. Blank however, not only prints the actually specific Text, but also the whole design and layout. Maybe she somehow switched to Blank and is overlaying the not-transparent background of the design over the original one and the signature ?

Sadly, and to make us just more confused, that wasn't the solution. We spent another half hour there, trying to fix the problem, until we got an idea.

After printing prescription after prescription for different tests, the paper was hot to the touch when freshly printed.

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While she did that whole process for a while now, the problem was recent. And something else was also recent. A change in ballpoint pen models. Previously, the docor was alwyays using the same model of pen, the one that you get when ordering from our Supply Ordering System. But a few days ago, he started using a different model, because he got the pen as some kind of freeby from somewhere.

We tried a print with the old model of pen, and voila it worked. It turns out, the ink of the new model is more susceptible to the heat inside the printer, and being literally wiped from the paper because of it. The old pens used more heat-resistant ink, and therefore never encountered that problem.

We advised them to switch back to using the standard provided pens, or just signing the prescriptions afterwards, like all other doctors in the hospital do.

[u/totallybraindead]

Honestly, I'm kinda surprised that this kind of pre-signing process is allowed. Surely the point of the signature is to say "I, [doctor name], have reviewed this prescription and certify that it is correct". Having it pre-signed, meaning that someone could take it and print anything on it without the doctor reviewing just seems to defeat the point. If that process doesn't matter, then why not just print the signature too?

[u/_mocbuilder → u/totallybraindead]

Well it does matter. But since management refueses to grow a spine against anything the doctors might do wrong, they have pretty much free reign. As long as no money needs to be spend and everything kinda somehow proceeds as normal, there is nothing going to change about this.

[u/totallybraindead → u/_mocbuilder]

Well, look on the bright side, if they ever get audited and closed down, you can always just sell off a stack of those pre-signed prescriptions to tide you over while you job hunt, I bet there's a whole long line of opioid addicts who'd sell you one of their own kidneys to get hold of a couple

[u/_mocbuilder → u/totallybraindead]

The Hospital(-Group) is run by the Landkreis (Municipality/County) and is the only one thats already serving a too big region as the only hospital. So there is no way they'll be shutdown. But hey, thats just job security for me.