Same screen to edit and display

Question

I'm building an infirmary application in which after you log in and select a patient, you are shown their info on one side with a new visit form on the other side .

I want to be able to view patient history when one clicks on visit from the history section circled below.

My question is ,should upon clicking , it populate the visit entry form on the right or open up another form to view the information. For some reason I feel uncomfortable with using the same visual to both enter information and view historical information. What is the recommended practice for such a case

Answer 1

I would suggest running a study on what medical staff do when checking on a patient. I would be prepared to bet that the first thing they do is check on the patient's history before making their own examination and finally adding their own notes.

If this is the case then you probably want to display a scrollable history (starting with the most recent entry) on the side where you currently have the form and adding a button adds a new empty entry at the top when it's required.

Answer 2

If this is the visit history, why are you showing it in a form? would they be able to edit it as it has a save button? If not, the summary could be shown in a tool tip and user can click on edit history on the circled table to edit besides the view link. that is action on demand.