Subject Notes is a feature in m.Care that allows you to set up a note that can be viewed and interacted with by a patient. A common use for this feature is to set up a set of forms that you wish the patient to review and then to sign.
There are several steps involved and setting up a new subject note and several pieces of m.Care that are used in order to get the subject note to present to the patient and the following sections will help you set up one of these notes. Basically you will do the following:
- Create a Subject Note Template that will contain the content of the note you wish to have the patient sign
- Use the Patient Notes List feature on the Subject Notebook to assign the note to a patient
- Ensure that the Subject Notes card is included in the layout that you use for the patient’s dashboard
- Reviewing what the note will look like to the subject
Create a Subject Note Template
Let’s start by creating the Note Template. Navigate to the Layouts view on LSTMonitor. The Layouts view is typically located on your Configuration Menu. The Layout Tools icon appears as follows:
Once you find the layout tool and click it you will be presented with the Layout Page that shows collection of layouts defined by or for your department. From the Layouts Page, click the “New” button in the top right corner. When you do so, fill in the name, description of the note with something that makes sense to you and then ensure that the “Type” field is set to “Note Templates”. Your screen should look like the following:
NOTE: It is very important that you have the Type set to Note Templates to get this to work.
Now that you have defined a new note template, we can proceed to add sections to the note that will represent the content of the form you wish the patient to sign. We’ll keep this simple and use just two features… a) Text and b) Note Signature. Go ahead and add those two sections to the note. When you are done, your note layout should appear as follows:
Next, click on the “Advanced” link next to the “Text” feature in your layout. When you do so, you will be presented with a set of fields that you can fill in for this section of the note. In mine, I created a very basic set of instructions and gave them a title. This instruction text will be presented to the user just above to space for their signature.
You can make your text say whatever you’d like. In fact, you can use any of the features on the layout that you see in the dropdown on the layout screen to set up your note including using a word processor for more formalized note content. Here, I’ve just used the Text feature for demonstration purposes.
Click Save on your Text and then navigate back to the note template view.
Now, click on the “Advanced” link next to the note signature feature. I filled out a title for the section and added some instruction text so that the user knows that we are expecting them to sign this note upon reading it.
Click Save and navigated back to your note layout.
Ensure the Subject Can See the Note
The last, and very critical step is to mark this layout so that the system knows that the note will ultimately be visible to a subject. There is a check box on the Layout that is labeled “Is Visible To Subject?”. Make sure that is checked as shown below, otherwise the note will not be visible to the subject.
At this point, you have completed the process of setting up the note that you want the user to sign.
The next step in the process is to assign the note to the subject so that they are prompted to review and sign the note.
Assign Note to Patient
In this step, you will take your previously created note and assign it to a patient so that they are prompted to sign the note. To do this step, your subject notebook must have the “Patient Notes List” feature in use as one of the tabs of the notebook. When you click on that tab, the system will display a set of notes that you have previously assigned to the patient to review. If you have note previously assigned any notes, the list will appear blank. In my example patient, you can see 4 notes have already been assigned.
From this screen, change the Note Type to the name of the note you created in the first section and then click the “+” button. In my demonstration, I created a note template named “Sign This Note” and so I’ve specified that template in the Note Type drop Down List as shown. Next, I will click the “+” button.
After clicking the “+” button, my note template is displayed so that I can see what it will look like when presented to the patient.
Here’s what mine looked like:
That’s all you’ll need to do to assigned the note to this patient. Next up, we need to get the note to display.
Displaying Signature Notes to the Subject
The last step is to ensure that the subject can see the note. The way to do this is to enable the “Subject Notes List” feature on one of the dashboards that you use as the primary dashboard for your patient.
Navigate to the Layouts tool again. Find that dashboard in the list and click on Revise. My dashboard is named V2 Demo Dashboard With Map so I clicked revise next to it in the following list:
Next, I added a dashboard feature to my dashboard as follows:
Next, I clicked Advanced and gave the item a title of Notes List and saved.
At this point, you have completed the steps necessary to get your note to display.
Subject’s View of your Signature Note
Here’s what my dashboard looks like when I sign on and test it as a subject. Note that there are 2 notes available to me to sign. If there were 0 notes available, this layout feature will NOT display. It only displays if there are notes available for me to review or sign.
Seeing the above dashboard, I clicked on the “Sign This Note” line item in the display and received the following screen:
Conclusion
There you have it… a method of defining a note of your own format that you can then assign to a subject in your department for review and signature. After the subject signs the note and clicks the “Check Mark” toward the bottom left, LSTMonitor will show this to you on the Notes page of the subject notebook by showing the status as completed with the actual. completion date displayed.