Kaiser Family Practice

Today, I did a half-day with Kaiser family practice in Rohnert Park. I know I've really said this about everything in the past few posts, but I enjoyed it. The great thing about Kaiser's system is how smoothly everything runs. They have really figured out the electronic medical record and it's impressive. A few shortcuts and the SOAP note is populated with the patient's ongoing problem list, medications, lab values, and vitals. A couple clicks and the prescription is ready to be filled at the pharmacy. Emails from patients and colleagues are filtered and labeled in order of importance. The scheduling and rooming is all online. These seem like simple things, but after working in clinics where nurses have to write down the patient's room on a paper schedule to let the doctor know where to go next, this is welcome relief. Today, at Kaiser, I saw very bread-and-butter cases: a first diagnosis of hypertension and a routine adolescent checkup with complaint of acne. Simple, but good for the beginning of third year.