How to Color-Code Medical Chart Sections

Assign each chart section its own color and never reuse it. A common starting scheme for a clinical chart:

• Progress Notes — blue
• Labs — yellow
• EKG / Diagnostics — red
• Consults — green
• Medications — orange
• Misc / Correspondence — gray or clear

Colors that sit next to each other in the chart should be easy to tell apart at arm's length — pair light with dark rather than running similar hues together (blue next to purple next to navy defeats the purpose). If a section is referenced in urgent moments, give it the loudest color and reserve that color for nothing else.

Color-blind-friendly tip: about 1 in 12 men can't reliably separate red from green. If both appear in your scheme, keep them far apart in the tab order and make sure the printed titles do the disambiguating.

Color-coding only works when everyone uses the same map. Print a one-page legend — color, section name, tab position — and post it at the filing shelf and in onboarding materials. When every chart matches the legend, a new hire files correctly on day one.

On Mylar-reinforced paper tabs, the color is the Mylar laminate itself — a translucent colored film over the printed tab, in 19 available colors, so the title stays crisp under the color. On poly (plastic) dividers, the whole divider is the color, in 11 wipe-clean options.

Ordering custom printed sets means the color AND the title are fixed together for every chart — no relabeling stock dividers, no drift between charts. Sets arrive collated in section order, and every set matches your legend exactly. Design the scheme once in the online designer (each tab can carry its own color), approve the free PDF proof, and reorder the identical set as the practice grows.