Family doctors and their records: a survey in southern alberta

A questionnaire about their approach to keeping office records was completed by 82 randomly selected family physicians in southern Alberta. The results suggest that although there were few manifestly inadequate recordkeepers, there were many areas for legitimate concern, especially the following:1. Extremely brief notes2. Limited attention to psychosocial data3. Underutilization of the more efficient filing techniques4. Poorly organized charts5. Failure to exploit fully innovations which had been introduced into the records system6. Inadequate protection of the records.There is reason to believe that the standard of record-keeping in family practice is improving. A few small, simple changes in our record-keeping habits could effect a considerable acceleration of this process.