Well, Ches, that's easy I think. I believe I am as close to paperless as can be, but I still have to use paper somehow. I guess there are three solutions.
The first is what we do. We still use paper Encounter forms or Superbills. We have clipboards, and we have the encounter form on the clipboard. On that we have the, obviously, the patient name, DOB, and reason for visit. You could ask your staff to put as little or as much as you want. All of these things are on the sheet when printed. So, at least when I go in the room, I know who the patient is and the family, and I know the chief complaint. This also makes it easier for me to start asking questions (although I risk not knowing some data my MA put in the chart). But, I am then not immediately opening the computer and chart.
Another way that you could use +/- the above would be for your staff to print the last visit. This would give you a lot of information to go by. Depending on how large your notes are, you could even print them on the back of the Superbill, but I am guessing, being a specialist, they would be longer. It would make you look awfully smart if you quickly glanced over the note and then tucked it under the Superbill. You would be able to talk about the pollen and a few details of their last visit.
Finally, I know that Jim who put on the ACUC, likes to print off the summary sheet and give it to the patient to look over and make sure everything is correct. You could do this as well, but it wouldn't contain the last note, but it would have the list of diagnoses, which I would thing would be less helpful with a specialist.
I guess don't miss the forrest for the trees by trying to get rid of all paper.
