Insights from the Front Lines of Medical Documentation
We explore the root causes of information chaos, designing for clarity, and the thoughtful application of AI in medicine.
Why Clinicians Copy-Paste: Designing for Persistence, Not Duplication
Clinicians aren’t copy-pasting out of laziness. They’re trying to preserve clinical context that still matters. In this post, we explore how our research into duplication in the EHR led us to rethink documentation persistence and build Problem Link, a feature that keeps medical problems connected over time.
Why “Faster Notes” Won’t Fix Cognitive Overload
Notes that write themselves are handy—but they don’t cure information overload. Clinicians still scroll through dozens of encounters to recover context. In this post we unpack why “faster notes” isn’t enough, show how persistent, problem-oriented threads cut cognitive load, and share what we’re building at River Records to keep every detail—labs, meds, follow-ups—exactly where you need it, every time.
Notes Are Deadweight. Clinical Context Is the Future.
For years, the clinical note has been treated as the centerpiece of medical documentation. But in practice, it’s become a relic of a paper-based past—bloated with repetition, slow to navigate, and ill-suited to the way clinicians actually think. At River Records, we’re reimagining documentation not as a series of static notes, but as a living, structured reflection of the patient. By organizing everything around medical problems rather than encounters, Stream gives clinicians the context they need without forcing them to dig through layers of outdated text. The result is faster reviews, clearer updates, and documentation that actually supports care.