Home Forums Discussions General Discussion Periods. Can they help the formatting of labs?

OK, this is nowhere near the excitement going on in two other threads, but I am sure it will be much friendlier. I would like some input before I put it in the Tips section, 'cause maybe it's not a good tip.

Just wondering if anyone gets slightly annoyed at the way the labs show up in the plan section of the note. If you enter them in the order writer IN the chart, they always come out like:

These orders were recommended to the patient: CBC
CMP
ESR
CRP
etc.

That, of course, looks poor and ends up being saved that way. Now you can, obviously, move down one space in the order writer or move the CBC down manually, but that takes that extra step which = time.

I went to my 30 or so templates and tried something. I kind of like it; I kinda don't. I highlighted in templated lab, and moved it down one with the return key, then inserted a "." there to take up space. This works great when saved in the chart. You can hardly see the periods as it abuts the colon as in:. It's actually lighter than that.

It looks a little worse, I think, when you print out a lab as it then moves things down one line from the grey border, and the "." period is a little more visible.

I would really appreciate it if someone could take a look and push me one way or another. Thanks.

I'm not sure I understand, Bert. Where do you put the period?

I would have you upload one of your templates, but we might have to wait a long time for Vinny to OK the upload.

You could just copy and paste one of your templates and post it here, and then I could copy and paste it into my Lab template to see what it looks like.

Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words.

I will do that today. Even though it has been less than 10 degrees here in New England, I am bit hot from getting too near the flame wars. <G>

Brian,

I can possibly post some screen shots. I think it may be easier one step at a time. Or at least seeing if you SEE the problem or if it is even a problem for you.

Open any chart, it doesn't matter which, becaue you won't be saving it. Open the orders writer. Write a series of labs, say:

CBC
ESR
BMP

Now, click on Save (without printing). Look at the way it is saved in the plan section. You should see:

ORDERED/ADVISED:CBC
ESR
BMP

If you don't mind that the CBC is on the same line as the ORDERED/ADVISED, then it probably won't matter to you. For me, that looks horrendous. Let me know.