Medical Record Design Points

Qualitative Data

    To reduce chart lore, know who entered the data and when it was entered.

    Use Lowlighting to indicate imported text, eg,

            ID: 28 week infant

            Nina is now day of life 6, with a resolving sepsis, RDS, PDA, anemia, and apnea, treated with CPAP.  She is weaned to room air today. She has tolerated maternal milk feeds since DOL 1, and is advancing to full feeds off of HAL today. She is on day 6/7 of ampicillin and gentamicin.

Quantitative data

Numerals are a pain point.

    Use sparklines or tiny histograms for time series quantitative data such as labs, vital signs, and other quantitative data.

    Examples of sparklines in medicine

        Be sure that the length of the line is a meaningful epoch.

        Indicate normal values with a light shaded bar.

        Mark the most recent value with a dot