There’s an unspoken assumption when you go to see a doctor: the doctor knows your medical story and is making decisions based on that story. But the reality frequently falls short. Medical records vanish when we switch doctors. Critical details of life-saving treatment plans get lost in muddled electronic charts. The doctors we see change according to specialty, hospital shifts, or an insurer’s whims.

Stanford physician Ilana Yurkiewicz calls this fragmentation, and, she reveals, it’s the central failure of health care today. In this gripping narrative from medicine’s front lines, she shows how a system that doesn’t talk to itself forces doctors, patients, and their loved ones to go to heroic lengths to bridge the gaps. With lives at stake and little other choice, we all do so―but the system is hanging by a thread, and we need better solutions. Radiantly humane, empowering, and ultimately hopeful, Fragmented is a prescription for what really needs fixing in modern medicine.