Outpatient medical records: improvements through layout engineering.

Dissatisfied with some functional aspects of the problem-oriented medical records used by their medical group, a committee of member physicians redesigned their office charts. Applying techniques of systematic layout planning, employed regularly as a tool of industrial engineering, these clinicians devised what they feel to be outpatient document with unique features. The resulting product forms a cohesive unit, eliminates duplication and provides many medicolegal safeguards.