laumansm: "After visit summaries"
Neat idea ... printing out the key patient information for that visit so the patient can understand what just happened to them !
I certainly see an important trend here ..... we need a new Template for "Medical Summaries". I see Great Need for this:
(1) After Visit Summary
(2) Pre Op Summary
(3) Changing Doctors Summary
(4) Insurance Summary
(5) Whatever Situation Summary ...
laumansm: Yes, this is kind of what I was thinking of, with the exception that I cannot add my own notes/modify the text. Would be great to push this note to Word instead of pushing it to GSView
I would find a PUSH TO Word Feature very helpful. Printing to Word is a feature I use a great deal already. Being able to edit and touch up the Final Document is a great bonus for many reasons.
(1) Many things I put in the Diagnoses are not entirely appropriate for other doctors or other sources to know about. "Keep monitoring for Depression". "Very anxious". "Husband is worried about her mood". Or whatever.
(2) When doing patient summaries I often add in which doctor they are seeing for certain diagnoses (ie. so one doctor knows which other doctors the patient sees.).
(3) I like to make my documents look awesome. Word is great for adding images, Bolding on the fly, adding a colour Header, chopping up a document exactly as you want it, adding a digital signature ... and many other last minute things you want to do before you [FAX] [PRINT] ! A weakness of Synapse thus far (and many EMRs) is formatting of PRINT / FAX documents. Word would promptly eliminate all that.
Note: Your need for some "Patient-language" that does belong in the Visit/Consult note ..... could easily be added to the Word Document with some Macro Text. Word has KILLER formatted Macro Text ability.
(4) sometimes the patient's address changes ... and I just want to delete it.
There are soooo many great examples how: PRINT to Word = Power and Flexibility.
The idea you can create a pre-made Template for every situation is simplistic.
Interestingly enough I find that my intermediate step of Printing to Word before printing the final document has great clinical value. I seem to come up with some super important information about patients at times as I read through what Synapse pumped out to Word. I will save these files to the patients Windows (aka "Paperport") directory because of how great they look and I will even often reuse the documents. To get the Networked Folder URL (for me: p:\patients\D\Doe, John I use the [Xplr] button to pop the directory up and then I just copy the URL of the folder and use it in the Save As ... dialog box in MS Word ! I would much prefer that Synapse generates a Word File in patient's directory ... pumps it full of data .... so I dont need to go through this process.
Note: one thing that would be great for "Print to Word" would be to have a Synapse Specific default Word document template which is different from my usual default Word Document template (Normal.dot)
Graham:
What we are doing is creating a report ... so I don't understand why you wish to add more text and not place it in the medical record. So, my initial thought is that any extra text you want added should be placed inside the encounter text, and then you do the push to whereever.
Flexibility = Tremendous Power.
laumansm:
I guess, what I am aiming at here is the possibility to generate a template that is reusable and contains the data that I want it to contain e.g. today's dx, plan, vital signs, current meds, certain meds. I could make templates (kind of like reports) for all kind of situations: AVS, lab summaries, referral letters, prescriptions, lab requests, blank patient letters, all from the same function. I have seen this kind of functionality in 3 other EHR and found it very useful. I can elaborate on this if you wish.
We really think alike ! Synapse has alot of that I agree that all of this should be able to be sent to Word .... so the document's information can be verified before sending (print and fax).
Graham: The Medical Summary template isn't modifiable ( yet ) though it could be. It's basically a header, followed by all the selected text from the check boxes.
A modifiable Medical Summary is a great idea. But it will never eclipse the Power of Pumping the data to Word and allow me to EDIT (add and subtract) what is appropriate in the current situation.
laumansm: Still, it would be nice if there was an option to modify the text easily after generation of the ps file e.g. by pushing it to Word or some other text editor (Wordpad?) instead. But maybe that's just me.
Oh Gosh No. I think this is a VERY useful idea. One of many reasons why I didn't like Amazing Charts was the Summaries were (1) uneditable and (2) didn't get Saved anywhere.
I think "Pump to Word" should be available for EVERY printing / faxing situations for the reasons outlined above and many other reasons.
Great ideas here 
