The Superior Care Health Group (SCHG) recently installed a new system

for electronically sending patient prescriptions to pharmacies. This new

e-prescribing system was working well until recently. Now the system is

displaying errors periodically. When this occurs, the prescribing

doctor has to call the prescription into the pharmacy, which takes much

more time. The new office manager, Braden Thomas, is responsible for

maintaining the system. Braden found an error-log file in the system.

These errors are perplexing and contain cryptic messages:

07, incorSCRIPT error #34rect PVD format

PProc error #3212, Schedule 1 not allowed

PProc error #3245, not in formulary

The troubleshooting process should be distilled into four steps

Step 1: The system malfunctions and symptoms are identified.

Step 2: A list of possible causes is generated based on existing knowledge, research, and/or previous experience.

Step 3: Additional data is collected and, based on a process of elimination, the causes of the problem are determined.

Step 4: The solution is tested to confirm that the problem has been solved.