Application of the Weed System to Psychiatric Records

Abstract

The medical record is being called upon to play an increasingly important role in medical education and effective patient care. The Weed system of “problem-oriented” medical record-keeping can enhance the effectiveness of the medical chart for these purposes and also for the various goals of chart audit. There has been increasing acceptance and application of this system both in medical schools and by practicing physicians. The psychiatric record has been particularly lacking in consistent organization, clarity, accuracy and readability. We have combined, in our approach to psychiatric records in a general hospital, a strongly behavioral and social psychiatric perspective with the Weed system to provide a psychiatric record that is a usable and practical document for teaching, research, effective continued patient care, and medical and fiscal audit.