Home Forums Discussions General Discussion New NP - Looking for tips & tricks

Hey everyone,

I'm a new NP coming from an emergency room setting where I lived and breathed Epic. Dot phrases, SmartPhrases, dynamic data fields (@AGE@, @SEX@, etc.), hotkeys — all of that was baked into my daily workflow and I leaned on it heavily to keep up with volume.

I'm now in a practice using Amazing Charts, and I want to make sure I'm getting the most out of what AC can do natively rather than fighting the software or doing things the hard way. I've gone through the help documentation and I'm getting comfortable with the basics — right-click templates, the Letter Writer's dynamic data fields, stepping off from prior encounters — but I have a feeling there's a lot I'm missing.

A few specific things I'm hoping to learn from you power users:

- Is there any way to pull patient demographics (name, age, DOB) directly into a progress note, similar to how Epic handles it with SmartPhrases? Or is that functionality limited to the Letter Writer?
- What does your template library look like? Any advice on how to organize and build out templates efficiently as a new user?
- Are there keyboard shortcuts or workflow tricks that aren't obvious from the documentation?
- Has anyone had success pairing AC with third-party tools (ShortKeys, AutoHotKey, etc.) to fill in gaps?
- Any "I wish someone had told me this on day one" advice?

I'm not trying to turn AC into Epic — I know they're different animals. I just want to make sure I'm charting as efficiently as possible so I can focus on patients instead of clicking.

Appreciate any tips, tricks, or template shares. Thanks in advance!

Welcome to the AC club!

I try to create templates on the fly as I need them. If I find myself ever typing the same thing more than once for any visit(s) I template it right then and there. Slower to create these in the beginning but it rapidly creates a personal library that has sped up my visit charting. Within a few weeks you will have templated many of the most common visit details.

For example if I typically counsel patients with diabetes on lifestyle adherence at visits, I will create that template in the plan section ("Discussed dietary and exercise changes to help control blood sugar and reduce weight" and then name template 'DM2 lifestyle'). Now I have this for all future diabetes visits with a right click (or control-T mouse click combination).

AC unfortunately sorts templates by alphabetical order using the first letter of the template name, which is not always how I want to see them. So I often put a capital letter at the beginning of a template name:

A: DM2 lifestyle
B: DM2 medication adherence
C: DM2 3 month follow up

so that they stay in the order I prefer.

Also try searching on the AC web site (or in this user board) for whole note templates; this has reduced my documentation time for standardized/simple visits such as well child checks by nearly 50%.

Finally, I often create templates with a space/mark to remind me to fill in the details, but leaving more flexibility in the original template. My HPI template for a well child check template is: "Here with - for - year old well child check." Then I replace the first dash with mother/father/guardian and the second dash patient's age. So the one template serves for many possible visits.

In short, if you've typed the same phrase twice in a week it's time to make it a template!

Best wishes in practice.

Carl B
Family Medicine
Washington State

Also welcome aboard
In response
- Is there any way to pull patient demographics (name, age, DOB) directly into a progress note, similar to how Epic handles it with SmartPhrases? Or is that functionality limited to the Letter Writer?
Directly in a note NO.
You can use a template with conditional text:
%AGE
%sex
%FNAME
%LNAME
%him
%he
%his
%Him

- What does your template library look like? Any advice on how to organize and build out templates efficiently as a new user?
Amazing Charts used to have a repository of templates you could download or upload and share. That functionality appears to not work in version 12.x.
You can share templates with other providers in your organization.
You can write brilliant description of a situation and template it.
You can borrow formatting from referrals or other data that comes your way.

- Are there keyboard shortcuts or workflow tricks that aren't obvious from the documentation?
I'm not sure how deep you've gone in the documentation but control S saves and closes a note, I used it all the time. of course you can change tabs with control 5-11, then the standard cut paste revert windows shortcuts.

- Has anyone had success pairing AC with third-party tools (ShortKeys, AutoHotKey, etc.) to fill in gaps?
I have used both in the past, but stopped. I'm honestly not sure why, but I guess they didn't help me much and I had to set them up on every computer.

- Any "I wish someone had told me this on day one" advice?
Right now, no, but let me let this percolate a bit.