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OutSmart Guide

TODO: Workspace Notes

A Workspace Note is a short note attached to a patient that sits outside any specific chart. Unlike chart notes (which are part of the clinical record for one visit), Workspace Notes follow the patient — they’re visible every time anyone opens the patient’s record, no matter which visit you’re working on.

Use them for things you want the whole team to see:

  • Billing flags — “balance owing”, “always pays in cash”, “review insurance before the next visit”
  • Behavioural alerts — “always running late, schedule accordingly”
  • Allergy flags — “severe latex allergy — flag at every appointment”
  • Care coordination notes — “spouse handles all communication, copy them on emails”
  • Preferences — “prefers female practitioner”, “needs interpreter”

Workspace Notes are not appropriate for clinical chart content — that belongs in a chart. The distinction matters because chart content is locked into the visit’s audit trail, while Workspace Notes are about the patient as a person and update as their situation changes.

Adding a Workspace Note

  1. Open the patient’s Patient Workspace (overview).
  2. Open the Notes tab.
  3. Click + New Note.
  4. Type the note text and apply labels (see below).
  5. Save.

The note appears in the Notes tab immediately and is available everywhere a Workspace Note can surface — the Daily Schedule printout (with the right label), the Express Checkout alerts panel, the Medical Summary’s Alerts section, and the patient’s row in your various lists.

Labels — How Notes Become Useful

Labels are what make Workspace Notes feel like more than just a pile of notes. Every note can have one or more labels (Billing, Emergency Alert, Calendar Alert, Allergy, and others you’ve configured) and those labels control where the note shows up:

LabelWhere the note surfaces
Calendar AlertThe note shows next to the patient on the Daily Schedule Printout
Emergency AlertSurfaces by default in the Express Checkout Alerts panel
BillingAlso surfaces by default in Express Checkout Alerts
Allergy / AllergiesListed in the Medical Summary under Allergies

The labels you apply determine which views the note “lives” in. A note labelled Billing appears at checkout; the same note labelled Calendar Alert would appear on the daily printout. The labels you assign should match where you want the team to see the note.

Editing, Removing, and Removing Labels

  • Edit a note — click it in the Notes tab and update the text or labels.
  • Remove a note — there’s a delete action in the note’s menu. Removing the note removes it everywhere it surfaces.
  • Remove a label without deleting the note — useful when a note is no longer relevant in one view but you still want it on the patient’s record. From the Daily Schedule Printout, for example, you can remove the Calendar Alert label inline without deleting the underlying note.

Who can remove labels

  • Admin staff can remove any label added by any practitioner at the clinic.
  • Practitioners can remove labels they added themselves or that admin staff added. They cannot remove labels added by other practitioners.

This split keeps practitioners in control of their own clinical flags while letting admin staff manage clinic-wide views.

Who Can See a Note

By default, Workspace Notes are visible to every team member at your clinic who has access to the patient’s record. There isn’t a “private to me” mode for Workspace Notes — they’re a shared team tool by design. If you need to record something that only you should see, use a chart’s Notes section instead (chart notes are scoped to the visit and follow the chart-sharing rules).