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OutSmart Guide

Workspace Notes

A note is a short note attached to a patient rather than to any one visit. Chart notes belong to the appointment they were written at. A note here follows the patient, so whoever opens this patient next sees it, whatever they are working on.

Use notes for the things the team needs to know that are not clinical findings: that the patient has a balance owing, that they always run late, that a family member handles their communication, that they need an interpreter.

Clinical findings belong in a chart. A chart is locked into the record of that visit, while a note is about the patient as they are now and changes as their situation does.

Where Notes Live

The Notes panel sits on the right of the patient workspace, underneath the row of tabs. It is open as soon as the workspace loads.

The Notes panel in the patient workspace. At the top right are a blue + Note button and a refresh button. Below them is one note. Its top line reads Visibility followed by Everyone @ This Office. Under the note's text is a row of two coloured labels, Calendar Alert and Billing, each with a small x. Under that is the date and time the note was written and a Delete link. A green square at the right of the note holds the author's initials.

A note in the Notes panel. The Visibility setting runs along the top of the note, its labels sit under the text, and the date and the Delete link sit underneath. The green square holds the initials of whoever wrote it.

Writing A Note

  1. Open the patient’s workspace.
  2. Click into the box reading Add a new note here. If the box is not showing, click + Note at the top right of the panel.
  3. Type the note.
  4. Click Save Note, or Cancel to throw it away.

The note appears in the panel straight away. The refresh button beside + Note reloads the list, which is worth a click if a colleague has been adding notes while you had the page open.

Who Can See A Note

Every note carries a Visibility setting along its top. There are seven choices, in two families.

By office. These share the note with people in the office the note was written in.

ChoiceWho sees it
Only MeNobody but you. This is what a new note starts as
Admin @ This OfficeYou and the office workers at this office
Practitioners @ This OfficeYou and the practitioners at this office
Everyone @ This OfficeYou and everybody at this office

By access to the patient. These share the note with people who can open this patient’s record anywhere in your clinic, which may be more than one office.

ChoiceWho sees it
All Admin With Access To Patient IDOffice workers who can open this patient
All Practitioners With Access To Patient IDPractitioners who can open this patient
Everyone With Access To Patient IDAnyone who can open this patient

Only the person who wrote a note can change its Visibility or delete it. Everybody else sees the setting written out as plain text and has no dropdown, so a note cannot be opened up, shut down or removed by anyone but its author.

Labels

Under the text of a saved note is a row where you add labels. Click the row, start typing, and pick from the list. A label is removed by clicking the small x on it.

OutSmart comes with a set of labels already made, including Calendar Alert, Emergency Alert, Medical Alert, Billing, To Be Reviewed, Lab Test, Handouts and Online Booking. Create New Label at the top of the list makes one of your own.

Labels do two jobs. They sort your notes, and they decide where a note shows up outside the workspace:

  • A note labelled Calendar Alert is shown when somebody books an appointment for that patient, which is the point of that label. See Calendar Alerts.
  • The Express Checkout card shows notes whose labels you have chosen in that card’s own settings, so which labels raise an alert at checkout is yours to decide. See Daily Express Checkout.
  • The Daily Schedule printout can include notes, filtered by label. See Daily Schedule Printout.
  • The workspace’s own settings, behind the gear at the top of the page, have Select Labels to display Workspace Alerts, which decides which labelled notes are treated as alerts on this page.

Because those choices are made in each place rather than fixed to one label, two people at the same clinic can have the same note raising an alert for one of them and not for the other.

Deleting A Note

Delete sits beside the date underneath the note, and only the author sees it. Deleting removes the note everywhere it was showing, including the calendar and the checkout card.

When A Note Is Not Where You Expect

A colleague cannot see the note I wrote

Check its Visibility. A new note is Only Me, and it stays that way until somebody changes it.

The note does not appear when booking an appointment

It needs the Calendar Alert label. Add the label on the note itself.

The note is not raising an alert at checkout

The Express Checkout card shows only the labels picked in that card’s settings. Open the card’s settings and check that the note’s label is among them.

I cannot change the Visibility of a note, or delete it

You are not its author. Ask the person whose initials are on it.