What I'd like to see
Perhaps an "At a glance" feature allowing one to see a brief summary of a patient's last three visits as you are looking at their Present Encounter screen.
As it is now you have to hit F8 (or select Past Encounter tab), select an encounter, select All or perhaps Assessment and Plan. Selecting "All" you have to wade through lots of verbiage. Assessment & Plan doesn't normally contain the snippet of clinical data, it's in the HOPI (eg headaches now monthly, urticaria returned two weeks ago etc) Bringing up past visits individually in Toto would be a real pain. Lots of staring at the computer screen instead of the patient. (If I'm an idiot and have missed an easier way to glean past clinical let me know)
My suggestion would be to have an optional pane alongside the Most Recent Encounter window with brief one page summaries (HOPI, Assessment & Plan)of the last several visits stacked in it. A mouse click, or better yet just a pointer "hover", would quickly magnify and reduce each summary.
As a specialist I tend to see many patients with a chronic problem. They don't develop new diagnoses very often. A virtue of paper charting was I could input, well actually scrawl a bit, the basics and upon their return visits it took only a few moments to glance at a page or two in the chart. It quickly gives you a feel of the clinical flow for that particular patient and their problem.
