Organizing records by case, not by visit

A visit is an event; a case is a story. When records are organized per visit, what you get is fragments with no thread: the patient came on this date, was treated this way, done. Six months later, when they return with the same complaint, you must reread everything to learn what has already been tried.

Organizing by case inverts that. One case holds every visit for one condition — from the first complaint, through the procedures done each time, until the condition is closed. Opening the case means reading its progression rather than collecting fragments.

For traditional practice the difference is immediate. A complaint that needs six follow-ups — a fracture, a recurring sprain, ongoing back pain — is one case with six visits, not six separate events. If the same patient returns a year later with a different complaint, that is a new case — the old history stays intact and unmixed.

This structure is also what makes overdue flags work: because the case knows when the next follow-up was scheduled, it can flag itself when the patient does not appear.

One discipline is required: close cases when the condition really is finished. Cases left open forever pile up and lose their usefulness.