A client is asking for a layout change to the New Encounter form, so I wanted to ask here if it’s attractive to others.
The main idea is instead of a single (add) button to add a new issue, we have a separate (add) button for each issue type. So the proposal is to move the current middle column (the input selection lists) to below the visit reason in the first column, and to add the issue (Add) buttons as the new rightmost column. There would be some helpful text to the right of each (Add) button and that that could be an additional issue attribute.
So this is about eliminating a step and providing some extra guidance when adding an issue here.
Is this generally desirable/acceptable? I know that lots of other things can be done with the New Encounter form, but I’d like to limit the scope of this question to what the client will sponsor.
Improving usability by reducing number of click-troughs is definitely a good thing. Please consider flexibility of the code when developing this feature. For example, implementing the single-click issue as individual buttons may incur additional developer overhead when adding new, or custom issue types (placing the button on a form, etc.) Maybe consider a drop-down list so the footprint of the control can stay consistent on the form if new issues are added.
Ken, thanks for your comments. There is a table of issue types in library/lists.inc (yeah I know it should be in custom/ or sites/default/ or in the database, but that’s another topic). So the code would reference that table and generate the buttons dynamically.
Not considering a drop list because that’s an extra click, and because we want to associate some explanatory text with each issue button. And it would be unusual for there to be enough issue types where space for them is, um, an issue. But if that comes up the code could generate the drop-list instead, if some limit is exceeded.
As a user, I like the idea of having separate “Add” buttons for different issue types. It would streamline things a bit.
I have a question on how people use the “Visit Category” field. On my installation, the choices are New Patient/Est Patient/Office Visit/Reserved. These are not mutually exclusive. Under CPT coding, office visits are either “New” or “Established”, so I’m not sure when you would use New Patient vs Office Visit when seeing a new patient?
It seems that these choices are extracted from the categories available in the scheduling module, where the same question applies.