moose, you are so on the money.
I spoke with a friend who is the admin for the IT department at a large hospital in TX. I told him the light bulb went on when the nurse, after the last phone call, told me she had to remind both surgeons to check their email.
All hospital personnel can access a patients records but because of HIPAA, certain areas are off limits. That's good and bad. The cashier doesn't need to see the results of my daughter's CT scan, but the other surgeon does. HIPAA allows only the doctor who ordered it to get the results, then he can share it. If someone has a day off or been in surgery all day long, they won't get it until they log on. Might be midnight or 4am, who knows?
My friend told me it's complicated even more because the notes are only as good as the person doing data entry. He said at least half of their IT calls are due to incompetence and software/computer illiteracy. A doctor, nurse, or lab tech thinks they've entered something but might forget to hit submit or enter. He said he gets at least 6 calls a week because a mouse has come unplugged.
If my daughter were seeing a personal physician, his/her staff would be expected to take care of all the details. But a hospital clinic is a whole different story.
Anyway, they called back and said for her to come in prepared for surgery tomorrow, though it may not happen since the surgeons still needed to get together and compare notes.
Crazy!