Elliot RylandsDon't spend the appointment reconstructing the week
A thin fake clinic chart. The home program on the phone is the same object on the treatment-room iPad. Recap is optional.
Maya Chen
34 · R ankle, week 3
Today · 10:15 · 30 min follow-up
Sarah Okonkwo, Physiotherapist. This week: 2 closed days, 1 flare. Recap is optional.
Friday 21 August
3 of 5 ticked. Write into the day if Sarah should already know.
Visit note · drafting from the week
- Wed 19 Aug · stairs were ugly.
- Thu 20 Aug · flare. Couldn’t — not a zero.
- Home program this morning: Ankle alphabet, 2 min; Single-leg balance, 3×30s; Calf raises, 3×12.
- Still open today: Short walk, no limp; Ice after, 10 min.
Home program
Friday 21 August · visit later
- Ankle alphabet, 2 min
- Single-leg balance, 3×30s
- Calf raises, 3×12
- Short walk, no limp
- Ice after, 10 min
Demo only. Maya, Sarah, and Harbour Physio are made up. 5 home-program items, a scripted week, Thursday a flare. Tick the phone or write into a day — the note on the iPad writes itself. Nothing is stored.
The object at the top is a visit. Light on the left because it is an iPad in a treatment room. Dark on the right because it is a phone at 9pm. Same rings. Same list. Thursday is a dashed circle because Maya could not, and the chart would rather know that than be lied to.
I have sat in enough allied-health rooms to know how the first ten minutes go. The practitioner asks if you did the exercises. You perform the week out loud. They type while you talk. Everybody is doing work that already happened, just not in the chart.
The interesting design question is not how to gamify a home program. Fitness already won rings. The question is: what if the week was already in the room?
Not another fake EHR
Healthcare designers love a dark dashboard. Vitals, inbox, billing, a sparkline that means nothing. I refused that. Chart is one patient, one visit, one home program. If a screen does not hold the list or the rings, it is not in the prototype.
Maya Chen, 34, right ankle, week 3. Sarah at 10:15 for a 30-minute follow-up. Five items a physio would actually write. A scripted August so the story does not depend on whatever Tuesday you opened this.
The incentive is being known
Skipping the recap is a strong clinic case and a weaker daily-use case. Patients sometimes want to tell the week. That ritual is also how they feel heard. So the room does not say “we will not talk about your week.” It says the week is already here. Anything to add?
Tonight still has to work without the visit. Tick a list item. Write into Wednesday. Mark a flare if you have to. A half ring is honest. A closed ring is green. A flare is a dashed gold circle, not a broken streak. Honesty has to be cheaper than lying or the data is theatre.
Tick the phone. Add a note to a day. The visit note drafts itself — “Wed: stairs were ugly”, “Thu flare” — before Maya sits down. That is the whole feature. The rings are the handshake. The list is the product.
What I refused
- Streaks, points, and locking the next booking behind a full month.
- Three fake Fitness rings that do not mean anything.
- A sidebar of vitals, messages, and invoices.
- A recap interrogation as the first screen.
The point
The appointment is scarce. Reconstructing the week is not a good way to spend it.
A real clinic would still write a real chart. This is a Lab prototype of continuity: dark at home, light in the room, one object, one visit. If you want the wider stage, it lives in the Lab. If you just wanted Sarah to already know Thursday was a flare, she does.
Chart is a Lab prototype. Full-viewport phone and iPad, a scripted week, a note that drafts from ticks and the odd day you actually wrote into.
Open Chart in the Lab →