After completing my fellowship, I considered taking a job filling in for a family physician on sabbatical who had been in solo practice for thirty-plus years. Even for these pre-electronic health record (EHR) days, his written notes were telegraphic. A typical example: "Patient doing fine. Labs normal. Continue current meds and follow up in 6 months." That was it. What he recorded in the chart was for his eyes only. No need to write an essay, or even a paragraph, when the only purpose was to jog his memory for the next time he saw the patient. A few years later, the federal government handed tens of billions of dollars to physicians and health care organizations to convert their paper charts to digital form in exchange for requirements to use these records to measure quality of care and increase transparency of health information to patients through so-called “patient portals.” Notes became longer and more detailed. The negative effects of EHRs on physician burnout and hea