Objectives: 

1. List clinical situations in which patient context is essential to planning appropriate care
2. Describe the implications for health care outcomes and health care costs of inattention to patient context
3. Adopt a systematic approach to contextualizing patient care
4. Define patient context, contextual red flag, contextual factor, and contextual error in medicine
5. Provide examples of contextual errors that compromise patient care or increase health care costs
6. Explain physician strategies for improving the contextualization of care