full context of a patient ’ s health on a single page .

care, yet too often it is difficult to use. Patients’ charts are overflowing with information – problem lists, medication lists, disease-oriented flow sheets, laboratory flow sheets, preventive screening flow sheets, immunization lists, and previous histories and physicals. A physician must review multiple pages to find what he or she needs. Then, he or she has to take chronologically listed but unrelated information and mentally reorder it by disease or organ system, gather today’s data, and finally integrate them to develop an appropriate treatment plan. To provide high-quality, efficient care, it helps to have an up-to-date integrated summary of the patient’s health. The integrated summary is a single concise page kept topmost on the left side of the chart, opposite the most recent progress note, readily available for quick review prior to evaluating the patient. Its major benefits include the following: • It summarizes and replaces the patient’s demographic data, problem list, past medical history, immunization list, medication list and flow sheets, and it provides an abbreviated plan both for today and for future visits all on a single page. • It organizes problems, medications and flow-sheet parameters by disease or organ system, not simply chronologically, and integrates them to make their relationships more evident over time. • It eases documentation. The integrated summary requires minimal data entry at each visit, and it simplifies progress note documentation. • It can be easily and inexpensively implemented with nothing other than a photocopier and handwritten entries, or programmed as a component of an electronic medical record (EMR). • It offers a template that can be altered to accommodate the work styles and preferences of any physician.