Introduction to Smart Templates

How To Create Smart Templates

Smart Templates are building blocks that you can combine in various ways to create individualized Medical Charts. They can be created only within practitioner accounts with a paid subscription.

The idea behind Smart Templates is to create small very specific templates which can later be combined to create a Medical Chart (like a SOAP Chart). Creating a Smart Template for your various types of visits can help greatly speed up your charting process.  It is one of the most useful and time-saving features of OutSmart EMR.

The best way to use templates is as building blocks. For example, set up a simple treatment plan for hypertension, and then an intake template for fertility patients.

If you get a patient for fertility whom you end up diagnosing with hypertension, you can add both the fertility template and the hypertension template into your chart, and have all the necessary fields available, and pre-populated. If you’re missing any fields, you can also add those right into your chart during the visit.

Creating a Template From Scratch

To create a template, open the Main Navigation Menu and click on SmartCharts.  Then, select the Smart Templates tab at the top and click on “Create New Template”.

A Template looks nearly identical to a SmartChart, the only difference being that a Smart Template does not refer to a specific patient, so you are essentially create a chart for a fictitious patient.

When you are done creating your template, and adding all your information, click on save, and close the chart.  You can then start over and create as many templates as you like.

Creating a Template From An Existing Patient Chart

This video will show you how to create a Smart Template from an existing chart, and in what situations that might be useful.

Three Template Example

In the Smart Template editing view, start by adding charting sections to fulfill a very specific type of situation.  For example, you might create a template called “First Visit General”, which would contain all of the charting sections required for a first visit, regardless of the patient’s concerns.  Here is an example of a possible First Visit General Template:

1. Family Medical History (Subjective)
2. Goals (Subjective)
3. Measurements (Objective)
4. Future Plan (Plan)

Then you could create a Infertilify Template:

1. Chief Concerns: Infertility (Subjective)
2. Female Reproductive Questionnaire (Subjective)
3. Diagnosis: Infertility (Assessment)
4. Counselling: Fertility counselling (Plan)

Finally, you could also create a Dairy Free Diet treatment plan, for example:

1. Diet and Nutrition: Dairy Free Diet (Plan)
2. Lifestyle: Daily Excercise (Plan)
3. Products: Fish Oil (Plan)

So now we have 3 templates created.  Let’s say your next patient is coming for their first visit, and you know they are seeing you for fertility concerns.  You can start a new chart, and add in the First Visit General template, and the Fertility template.  Later, if you feel that this patient needs to go on a dairy free diet, then you can dd the Dairy Free Diet template.

By simply adding in 3 sections, you’ve already completed a portion of the patient’s treatment plan, and added all the specialized sections necessary to do your charting.

Adding A Template To A Chart

Once you have created your templates, you can add them to an actual Medical Chart by selecting the template you created from the template drop-down list in your patient’s chart notes for that visit.