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How we think about the record

藏 · 取 · 稱 · 存

Five movements on what a Chinese medical record is, why software has been bad at holding one, and what we changed. It is the long version, and it is here rather than on the front page because the front page has a clinic owner to answer first.

The face of a hundred-drawer Chinese medicine apothecary cabinet, brass drawer pulls in raking light.
Still 01 · 藏

藏cáng · to store

A hundred drawers, and every one of them labelled.

The 百子櫃 — the hundred-drawer cabinet — is the oldest piece of clinical infrastructure in a Chinese medicine practice. It is also, plainly, a database. One material to a drawer, one name to the material, one place it lives, so that the person reaching for it never has to stop and think about where it is.

百子櫃 · one drawer, one material

  • 100屉drawers in a full cabinet
  • ≈300味materials a working dispensary keeps
Still 02 · 取

取qǔ · to draw

A drawer only opens for a reason, and the reason is upstream.

Before anything is dispensed there is a room, twenty minutes, and a conversation: a patient describing what changed, a practitioner asking, looking, listening, taking the pulse.

取 · the consultation comes first

  • ≈20分鐘a consultation, start to finish
  • 4診望 inspect · 聞 listen · 問 ask · 切 palpate

Sample record · 脈案

Three positions, three depths, one line in the chart.

Left wristRate72次 / 分

  • 寸cùn · distalDepth: 浮 floating細
  • 關guān · middleDepth: 中 middle弦
  • 尺chǐ · proximalDepth: 沉 deep弱
Each wrist is read at 寸, 關 and 尺, and at each position the practitioner notes the depth at which the pulse is clearest. YilaCMS keeps position, depth, rate and quality as separate fields rather than one sentence of prose.Illustrative sample record. Values shown for demonstration only.
Still 03 · 稱

稱chēng · to weigh

Nothing in a formula is unnamed, and nothing is unweighed.

Once a formula is decided, each constituent carries four things: a name, a weight in grams, a role in the formula, and sometimes an instruction about when it goes into the pot.

稱 · 君臣佐使 · dose in 克

  • 37克total weight, sample record
  • 4味constituents in this formula

Sample record · 方

君臣佐使 — every constituent has a job.

Filter by role
  • Material: 菊花jú huāDose: 9克Role: Minister後下 · added in the last 5 min
  • Material: 枸杞子gǒu qǐ zǐDose: 12克Role: Sovereign同煎 · decocted throughout
  • Material: 陳皮chén píDose: 6克Role: Assistant同煎 · decocted throughout
  • Material: 大棗dà zǎoDose: 10克Role: Envoy劈開 · split before use

Total37克Decoction水煎 · 400ml → 200ml · 分兩次溫服

Classical formula composition assigns each material a role: sovereign, minister, assistant, envoy. Select a role to see which lines carry it, and the field each one is stored in.Four roles. Pick one.Illustrative sample record, shown to demonstrate record structure. Not a prescription and not medical advice.
Still 04 · 存

IV存cún · to keep

The drawer closes and nothing is lost.

That is the whole promise of a filing system, and it is the part clinic software most often breaks: information goes in, and does not come back out in any shape the person who runs the clinic can use.

存 · one record, kept for the long run

  • 1份one record per patient, across the clinic
  • 0次times a doctor should retype what they already said

Folio方 № 0247葉 3 / 5Confirmed by the attending practitioner

Reference · 六經

Six stages, held as reference — never as a verdict.

  1. 太陽
  2. 陽明
  3. 少陽Recorded under
  4. 太陰
  5. 少陰
  6. 厥陰

The six-stage framework of the 傷寒論 is one of several classical lenses a practitioner may reason through. YilaCMS stores which lens the record was written under, and cites the passage it drew on. It does not decide.

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