Background: Accurate problem lists linked to the electronic medical record (EMR) can be a source of structured clinical data useful for communication among clinicians for patient care, clinical decision support design, and EMR phenotyping.  Nevertheless, modifying the electronic problem list is disruptive to clinician workflow under traditional charting methods, resulting in incomplete, inaccurate, and outdated [...]

Background: A problem list serves as a central place for hospital-based clinicians to obtain a comprehensive and concise view of the patient’s active medical conditions. Use of the hospital problem list has many potential benefits: it provides a mental model of patient’s health status; streamlines the documentation process; makes chart review more efficient; facilitates communication [...]

Background: Accurate problem lists linked to electronic medical record (EMR) clinical data can be useful for chart review by clinicians for patient care, clinical decision support design, and data extraction for clinical research.  The EMR at Stanford Hospital allows the problem list to be modified in several ways: adding and deleting problems, and designating problems [...]

Background: The diagnostic process is dynamic – as additional information becomes available and diagnostic uncertainty is addressed, diagnosis evolves. An accurate and updated problem list in the electronic health record (EHR) should reflect modifications and refinement of the working diagnosis (1). Anecdotally, this does not happen: many providers do not the update problem list or [...]