Here is a link to the movie which shows how to use Amazing Charts templates:
http://www.amazingcharts.com/demo/moviedemos/UsingTemplates.htmHow you organize your templates is a matter of taste.
Amazing Charts comes with standard templates which appear in alphabetical order.
However, most users end up customizing the templates to their taste, at some point. This includes the order in which templates occur in their respective lists. Here are some clever organizational schemes which other users have utilized in the past:
Jacques Guillot, MD, organizes his templates categorically. For his Exam templates, he chose 10 broad categories:
- 000 General
- 100 HEENT
- 200 Chest
- 300 Heart
- 400 Abdomen
- 500 Neuro
- 600 MSK
- 700 GU
- 800 Derm
- 900 Psych
He then labeled his templates numerically, such as:
- 410 Soft, NT: "Abdomen is soft and nontender."
- 415 No perit: "No peritnoneal signs."
- 510 WNL: "Neuro exam grossly normal."
- 515 2+ DTRs: "DTRs are 2+ and symmetric."
Dr. Guillot says that when searching the list, this gives a nice, sequential order. He can insert new templates in between, like 412 or 4121 and 4122.
Neil E Goodman MD (supermang) arranges his templates by System, then Disease State: As they will list alphabetically, the most common ones can be named using a "space" or other punctuation at the beginning of the heading which brings them to the top of the list.
- These are titles only, titled by
System - State - >EYES - WNL
- EYES - Allergic
- EYES - Blephar
- EYES - Conjunct
- >MOUTH - WNL
- MOUTH - Herpes
- MOUTH - Strep
- etc...
Note that these are titles only. The template would contain the individual doctors stereotypic description of typical findings, such as each of us use every day.
Vinny Meyer, MD has suggested using "a" to "z" for the prefix for systems, starts with the head and then works his way down. Normals are single letter, abnormals are letter and number. For example:
- a = normal
- a1 = allergies
- a2 = sinusitis
Again, these are titles only.
Vinny once said that he was working on an upgrade to Amazing Charts, changing the templates from a flat layout to a "treeview" system with full drag-and-drop, so that templates can be organized in folders. It is hoped that these changes will see the light of day as part of some future release.
