#Dev Log#ParkinSync#AWS#Health Informatics
Why Automatic OCR Import Still Needs Human Review
The difference between an operator reviewing imported care logs and a review gate enforced by the software.
Handwritten care notes can contain abbreviations, corrections, and marks whose meaning depends on the person who wrote them. OCR can produce a plausible value that is still wrong. An extraction request succeeding is therefore a transport and processing result, not proof that a record is trustworthy.
What the current implementation actually does
ParkinSync automatically imports normalized OCR rows into Google Sheets and asks an operator to review them afterward. The responsibility is to review after import. The code does not enforce approval before writing to the ledger, and importing a row does not prove that a person has reviewed it.
That distinction changes how we should describe the system. It has a place where an operator can inspect and correct the output. It does not yet have an enforced checkpoint that prevents unreviewed rows from entering the ledger or later analysis.
Divide the work without overstating the guarantee
The paper form preserves a familiar recording workflow. The machine extracts and normalizes cells and adds environmental context. The operator then compares the imported values with the source and decides whether they are suitable for exploratory analysis.
Google Sheets makes that inspection possible. It does not record or enforce every review simply because the data is readable there. Neither the availability of the spreadsheet nor a successful Lambda invocation establishes that every record has been checked.
A stronger review gate is still work to do
An enforced review design would need explicit review states, a way to trace corrections to their source, and a rule excluding unchecked observations from analysis. These controls should be tested against both accepted and rejected records before being described as implemented.
The project is a single-household research prototype. This article does not establish an OCR accuracy rate, a clinical benefit, or a multi-patient operating cost. The product page and public repository describe its current scope.
Thanks for reading — built with care, for caregivers.