Correction: PITO

Issue: BCMJ, vol. 52, No. 5, June 2010, Page 245 Letters
By: Jeremy Smith,

In the editing process, we inadver­tently changed the meaning of the first sentence of the PITO article “Getting connected: Electronic delivery of lab, radiology, and hospital reports” (BCMJ 2010;52:179-180).

The original paragraph submitted by the author, Jeremy Smith, read: “Con­sistently cited as one of the greatest benefits of EMR adoption, electronically receiving lab results, imaging reports, and hospital reports di­rectly into the EMR enhances care and increases office efficiency.”

As printed, the BCMJ article reads: “The ability to electronically receive lab results, imaging reports, and hospital reports directly is consistently cited as one of the greatest benefits of adopting an electronic medical record (EMR) system. EMR adoption enhances care and increases office efficiency.”

The original text suggested that electronically receiving results and reports enhances care and increases office efficiency; simply adopting an EMR will not. 

It is well known that some aspects increase efficiency (e.g., results delivery interface) while others reduce efficiency. Mr Smith in­tended to state only that getting results delivered directly into the EMR in­creases efficiency and enhances care.

We apologize for the error.  —ED

Jeremy Smith,. Correction: PITO. BCMJ, Vol. 52, No. 5, June, 2010, Page(s) 245 - Letters.


Above is the information needed to cite this article in your paper or presentation. The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) recommends the following citation style, which is the now nearly universally accepted citation style for scientific papers:
Halpern SD, Ubel PA, Caplan AL, Marion DW, Palmer AM, Schiding JK, et al. Solid-organ transplantation in HIV-infected patients. N Engl J Med. 2002;347:284-7.

About the ICMJE and citation styles

The ICMJE is small group of editors of general medical journals who first met informally in Vancouver, British Columbia, in 1978 to establish guidelines for the format of manuscripts submitted to their journals. The group became known as the Vancouver Group. Its requirements for manuscripts, including formats for bibliographic references developed by the U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM), were first published in 1979. The Vancouver Group expanded and evolved into the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), which meets annually. The ICMJE created the Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals to help authors and editors create and distribute accurate, clear, easily accessible reports of biomedical studies.

An alternate version of ICMJE style is to additionally list the month an issue number, but since most journals use continuous pagination, the shorter form provides sufficient information to locate the reference. The NLM now lists all authors.

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  • Only the first three authors are listed, followed by "et al."
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For more information on the ICMJE Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals, visit www.icmje.org

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