Interactive methods and systems for directing, integrating, documenting, and tracking steps taken by medical providers during the process of care for a patient's given condition. Doctors' actions are directed by a prescriptive protocol—a checklist of discrete steps designed for efficient or optimal care of an individual patient's specific condition. The step-by-step checklist is abstracted from decision tree guidelines for the optimal work up and treatment for the condition using probability-based methodology. The care protocols can be derived from widely available and non-proprietary guidelines and decision trees based on public medical research literature.In one embodiment, the invention can be employed by a primary care clinician at the point of referral into the specialist sector, and at the specialist level when proposing a risky or expensive or otherwise problematic medical or surgical diagnostic or treatment intervention. At these two critical transaction points in care, the checklist functions like a lock, based on a hidden clinical decision algorithm (an explanation of which can be displayed upon request). The system asks the clinician for data and then generates the patient's optimal checklist, displaying it as a point and click form keyed to the stage of care being undertaken by each doctor. As the clinician enters data into the checklist, a decision engine determines whether the checklist data satisfies predetermined criteria for authorization of the proposed action. The system can also document each transaction taken in the process of care to create an electronic record that can be made accessible to all clinicians involved in the process of care.