What is Medical Charting? Definition & Best Practices

LJ Acallar

November 5, 2025•17 min read

Fact checked by Dr. Ben Condon

What is Charting in the Medical Field?

In healthcare, medical charting is the systematic process of organizing patient records to prevent legal consequences and promote patient data safety.

Traditional charting practices involve varied guidelines in different countries, but all of these practices are geared towards the proper handling of patient data. In most ways, clinicians benefit as they can easily make data-based conclusions to inform their clinical decisions.

In this article, we will explore the uses of medical charting, the best practices in creating one, and how clinicians like you can leverage AI-powered medical charting tools to document thoroughly without imposing medico-legal risks.

Heidi infographic outlining its medical charting features for clinical reasoning, legal documentation, and billing/reimbursement.

Top 4 Primary Uses of Medical Charting

Medical charting offers several uses in clinical practice. For one, it benefits clinicians who have not previously seen the patient, making them understand patient history quickly. Without proper documentation, it’s nearly impossible to draw meaningful conclusions to make informed decisions.

Moreover, effective charting ensures that essential patient context is kept, which supports liability protection and readiness for audits. Below are the four primary ways medical charting supports care delivery.

1. Care Continuity

Charting ensures smoother care transitions, either from one provider to another or moving from hospital discharge to rehab. In settings where multiple physicians are involved, having synchronized, updated records in the system means minutes saved for better care delivery.

2. Clinical Reasoning

Accurate charting is the foundation for clinical reasoning. Starting off on the wrong foot in documentation can disrupt it later, like starting with incomplete or disorganized lab entries instead of reviewing patient charts. This is why including context per chart ensures clarity and reduces cognitive load on clinicians.

3. Legal Documentation

Fragmented documentation can expose care providers to legal risks that impact their reputation and finances. As the saying goes, “If it is not documented, then it did not happen.” Incomplete charts are among the most common contributors to claims in malpractice, so accurate records must be kept ready for review by medical and legal authorities as necessary.

4. Billing and Reimbursement

Charting is fundamental in maximizing billing and reimbursement accuracy. It helps capture all billable services, often by storing superbills. This practice supports both operational compliance and efficiency, benefiting both care systems and patients.

Accurate documentation reinforces patient trust. Seamless data exchange between systems also helps maintain continuity and ultimately improves patient outcomes through well-managed medical records.

When clinicians appear informed and aligned through using charts, or better yet, robust tools like Heidi that maintain quality in documentation handling, it frees them to focus more on seeing patients. Stronger clinician engagement is not the only result; patients also get to experience first-class, high-touch care.

In the video below, see how the Jean Bishop Integrated Care Centre uses Heidi’s AI-powered medical charting tool to keep the focus where it belongs: on the patient, not the paperwork.

Guidelines for Charting Entries in Clinical Records

Charting medical entries before being electronically pushed to EMRs follows different sets of guidelines in different regions. Nuances are found in the clarity of the details included in the charts, as well as regional and local regulations that differ in reinforcement. Below, we broke down best practices in medical charting across different parts of the world:

Medical Charting Best Practices In the US

In the US, chart entries require clear identification of the note's author. Including details such as date and time enhances the audit trail. Vague terms, like "normal lungs," should be avoided; instead, specific language such as "lungs clear bilaterally" is preferred. This commitment to specificity and completeness in US medical charts aims to minimize bias and omissions, thereby reducing potential unwelcome consequences.

Late entries are permissible if they are clearly marked, but backdating or altering medical records affects authenticity and so becomes a red flag in litigation. HIPAA defines the federal privacy and security laws, but state medical boards dictate retention policies. This makes retention standards a cause of liability, so compliance is a must.

Medical Charting Best Practices In Canada

Clinicians in Canada are professionally and legally required to maintain comprehensive patient records that are legible and accurate. Every detail is equally important and must be documented thoroughly. This includes modes of communication, along with the content of each interaction and patient response.

Moreover, documentation must reflect the identities of providers and patients alike, along with everyone involved in the care process. If documentation is delayed, the entry must be labeled as a “late entry.” In Canada, electronic record systems and e-templates are under provincial regulations and guidelines.

Medical Charting Best Practices In the UK

In the UK, the General Medical Council established Good Medical Practice guidelines to ensure that electronic notes are organized in a precise, contemporaneous way. Informal commentary is typically avoided as medical charts must focus on rationale and factual information. Lastly, it is essential to meticulously document data from virtual consultations whether it is done via email or phone calls, detailing both the content and method of engagement.

NHS guidance sets the varying minimum retention periods for medical records, and non-compliance can be a liability issue. Trusts must also ensure that audit trails do show accessed or altered records, as the lack of transparency can be a negligence claim.

Medical Charting Best Practices In Australia

In Australia, charting practice parallels common guidelines as well, such as the use of clear patient and provider identifiers, as well as audited logs. However, charts must also highlight actions taken and progress to ensure consistency. Clinical templates are adopted and used with caution, with clinicians keeping full authority and control over patient charts.

Records must be kept private and secure under both national and territorial privacy laws. Given that, only the authorities and care providers involved should have access to them.

Practice Compliant Medical Charting to Build Consistency

Medical charting principles are universally regulated to ensure patient safety and enhance accuracy. While methods and local considerations may vary, the core tenets remain consistent: notes must be complete, medically relevant, and accurate. Adhering to these standards helps clinicians maintain consistency in documentation.

In the video below, we’ll see how Veterinary Surgeon Charles Kuntz saves an hour a day and delivers 99% accuracy in the way he documents care using Heidi AI.

These practices aren’t just about the optimization or digitization of administrative workflows; they’re all about giving time back to clinicians and improving patient understanding. Clinicians at Hong Kong Foot Clinic used to spend valuable time piecing together scattered notes. As resident Podiatrist Alison Rooney recalls, “I used to sit there going, what did I do? Did I pad it or strap it? What was our plan?”

Thankfully, it’s not just about going paperless. Heidi streamlined their medical charting process by capturing the full clinician picture in real-time, removing guesswork and restoring confidence in documentation. With Heidi, medical charting becomes a living part of the consultation, so clinicians can focus on care, not catch-up.

"People used to lose paper notes. Now I email everything; exercises, guidance, referrals. They can access it from anywhere."

Key Components of Thorough Medical Charting

Effective medical charting is about enabling care delivery that does not take a toll on clinicians’ well-being. To help clinicians like you create reliable and reusable records, here are six core elements to incorporate into every note.

6 Cs of Medical Charting

In the US, medical charting is comprised of six Cs to easily remember the components and key factors in creating charts that are comprehensive and thorough.

Client’s Words - High-fidelity of notes means the verbatim descriptions and phrases from the patient must not be reworded or reiterated to preserve the nuances of the natural dialogue.
Clarity - Charts must be as clear as possible with concise medical terminology so clinicians can follow without confusion. Vague language must be avoided, which can be done through structured entry of medical speech.
Completeness - No crucial details must be omitted in the charts. All relevant data, including but not limited to exam findings, history, diagnostics, treatments, and plans, must be present in the notes.
Conciseness - “℅ productive cough x3d” is more concise than “The patient complains of having a productive cough for the past three days.” As much as possible, charts must be kept succinct without losing significant meaning.
Chronological Order - Events must be documented in temporal sequence, sometimes necessitating timestamps to reflect observations or interventions.
Confidentiality - Who has access to viewing, using, and sharing charts must be safeguarded, and the need to ensure compliance with laws such as HIPAA is of utmost importance.

SOAP Medical Charting for Structured Notes

SOAP is one of the most common frameworks accepted for organizing clinical notes in a logical and problem-oriented way. It typically requires patient identification and demographics to avoid a charting mismatch. While it reviews past medical history, it also emphasizes the presenting issue with a succinct statement for the reason of the visit.

A simple yet structured SOAP note template keeps organ system findings, imaging, and lab results in a single note. The amount of detail that goes into this document can help clinicians infer medical reasoning to link findings with possible diagnoses. Medical charting with the use of structured templates makes the steps to manage the patient easier, as updates over time can be found through a single search of the EMR.

Family Medical History Charting for Comprehensive Care

In comprehensive care for families, genetic predisposition is considered to guide screening as well as preventive interventions. Clinicians chart the health history of immediate and extended relatives, where they log certain information like the age of diagnosis or death.

This way, the progression of illness alongside relevant hereditary patterns is monitored and should there be several symptoms emerging, they can be accurately detected and differentially diagnosed.

With automated PDF form-filling functions, Heidi makes medical charting a breeze. It pre-populates structured fields based on patient consults, and you can feed it with context so it can capture and carry forward family medical history across succeeding sessions.

Medical Charting Examples in Emergency Care

Structured charts work efficiently in emergency care’s rapid workflows. This care setting often focuses on fast assessments and prioritized plans, and thus requires precision in notes. Precision can be achieved through abbreviation, as it can yield in-depth details in vitals, key tests, and findings without being verbose.

That said, clinicians needing a clear disposition on patient outcomes or warnings can use a more convenient EMS report template. This comprehensive template documents what changes transpired across the timeline in order to track progression and improve clinical decision-making. Ultimately, the sections in this report support communication, billing, and handoff to streamline care coordination.

In the video below, we demonstrate how to utilize Heidi's AI medical scribe for follow-up appointments. This allows you to integrate context from prior consultations with new sessions to provide thorough patient care.

Moving from clinical use cases to actionable steps, here’s how Heidi streamlines each step of your documentation process. All handled by Heidi, ambient transcription down to templated note generation, you can deliver care, hands-free.

Keep Your Focus on Care (Not Charts) with Heidi

Heidi works alongside you to make documentation part of care, not a burden outside it. Its tools fit into your natural rhythm, preserving every clinical detail while giving time back to where it matters: with your patients.

All it does is make admin time more bearable, easy, and fast. Here is how you can start:

Step 1: Start your session. Open Heidi, click “New session” then “Start transcribing.” Using ambient technology, Heidi listens to your patient encounters with your device’s built-in microphone. No special equipment needed.
Step 2: Let Heidi capture everything. Converse naturally as you would, and Heidi’s AI understands clinical context and transcribes in real-time. For patient visits you can use Transcription mode, and for word-for-word recording, you can use Dictate mode.
Step 3: Generate your structured note. Once completed, click “Stop transcribing” then select from over 1,000 custom templates. You can even create one from scratch if you love using prompts. For quick edits or essential documents required post-consult, use “Ask Heidi” at the bottom of your screen.

Heidi complies with global healthcare regulations, including HIPAA, GDPR, NHS, the APP, PIPEDA, and more. Without storing audio recordings and embedded localized hosting, you have full control over patient charts. It meets the highest security benchmarks, making it loved by more than 100,000 clinicians worldwide.
Try for free

Frequently Asked Questions about Medical Charting

What medical charting supplies are needed for accurate documentation?

Traditional medical charting supplies needed for accurate documentation typically include products and accessories that can be personalized. These include clipboards, dividers, ring binders, and chart racks that enhance clinicians’ workflow. In modern documentation, record management is organized by advanced administrative tools, often AI-powered, like AI medical scribes.

How do medical charting abbreviations improve efficiency and consistency?

In busy medical charting workflows, abbreviations help clinicians improve documentation efficiency and consistency by standardizing drug names, dose designations, and symbols. It is recommended that individual health organizations prevent misinterpretation by creating and clarifying a list of abbreviations they internally use. To maintain charting best practices, Joint Commission provided a list of prohibited abbreviations.

How can clinicians avoid medical charting errors?

To avoid errors, clinicians use modern medical charting software that streamlines how charts are formatted. This tool automatically structures spelling and punctuation and ensures that no information is omitted or missed. Care teams or multiple clinicians can collaborate more effectively this way, as they do not need to worry about incorrect dosages or illegible penmanship, which bear legal implications.

Share this post