Create a Pick List Within a Pick List

Customized pick lists are one of the most efficient data entry methods. Creating custom pick lists that contain the items that a user commonly and repeatedly utilizes, allows data entry to be performed quickly and efficiently via a click for insertion into documentation.

Below are the steps necessary to create a pick list within a pick list. Our example we will build is a medication pick list comprised of various categories of medications a user might commonly prescribe to his/her patients.

Step 1 - Create Multiple Multi Sel Lists

Step 1 - Create Multiple Multi Sel Lists
  1. Open the SMARText Items Manager by Clicking Docutainers > SMARText Items or Clicking F10 on the keyboard.
  2. Click on the green + to create a new item.
  3. Within in the SMARText Type Selection box, Select List and click Create.

 

Step 2 - SMARText Designer Part 1

Step 2 - SMARText Designer Part 1
  1. Create a shortcut, description, keywords, and a display header.  Check the box next to "only when item is empty," by the display header.
  2. Have the SMARText Designer to the right of the screen, and the SMARText Items Manager to the left of the screen.  Type in the SMARText item and Click the Search button-in this example, a medication was typed in.

Create a short shortcut that is easy to recall.  SOAPware also recommends to not use actual words or medical abbreviations, as others typing these words in notes would have these words expand on them each time they would hit the spacebar after typing the word or medical abbreviation. In addition, you should always include a unique keyword for easy retrieval purposes.

Step 3 - SMARText Designer Part 2

Step 3 - SMARText Designer Part 2
  1. Drag and Drop each SMARText Item into the Item Settings box within the SMARText Designer to create the pick list. Repeat searching for SMARText Items in the SMARText Items Manager and dragging them to the Item Settings box within the SMARText Designer, until all items desired are in the pick list.
  2. Choose Separate Lines within the Item Properties box, so that if multiple medications are selected from this list, they will enter on separate lines within the documentation.  
  3. Click Save when all items are in the pick list.

To see how to remove an item from the Item Settings box if need be, see the Creating SMARText Pick Lists lesson.

Tip: A SMARText item cannot be dragged and dropped if the item is not downloaded onto the network-so make sure the item has a green triangle next to it.  If not, it will be necessary to download the item first.

Repeat

Repeat Steps 1-3 for each pick list. In this example, a pick list was made for antibiotics as shown above, as well as Nsaids, BP meds, injectables, and Diabetic meds.

Step 4 -  Create Master Multi Sel List

Step 4 -  Create Master Multi Sel List
  1. Open the SMARText Items Manager by clicking Docutainers > SMARText Items or clicking F10 on the keyboard.
  2. Click on the green + to create a new item.
  3. Within in the SMARText Type Selection box, Select List and click Create.

Step 5 - SMARText Designer Part 3

Step 5 - SMARText Designer Part 3
  1. Create a shortcut, description, keywords, and a display header.  Check the box next to "only when item is empty," by the display header.
  2. Have the SMARText Designer to the right of the screen, and the SMARText Items Manager to the left of the screen.  Type in the SMARText item and Click the Search button-in this example, "srs" which is the unique keyword that has been entered for each pick list that has been created, was typed in.

Step 6 - SMARText Designer Part 4

Step 6 - SMARText Designer Part 4
  1. Drag and Drop each SMARText Item into the Item Settings box within the SMARText Designer to create the pick list. Repeat searching for SMARText Items in the SMARText Items Manager and dragging them to the Item Settings box within the SMARText Designer, until all items desired are in the pick list.
  2. Choose Separate Lines within the Item Properties box, so that if multiple medications are selected from this list, they will enter on separate lines within the documentation.  
  3. Click Save when all items are in the pick list.

Step 7 - Enter Master Pick List into Documentation

Step 7 - Enter Master Pick List into Documentation
  1. Type in master pick list shortcut followed by hitting the spacebar on the keyboard, or click F11 if this is the initial insert of this pick list.
  2. The Display Header for the master pick list will be inserted into the documentation.  To the right of the screen within SMARText Quick Access, the user will see a list of all the other pick lists within the master pick list.

Step 8 - SMARText Quick Access

Step 8 - SMARText Quick Access

Select each pick list to be entered, within SMARText Quick Access.  Remember, a user can deselect a pick list within SMARText Quick Access if he/she desires.

Step 9 - Select Medications from Various Pick Lists

Step 9 - Select Medications from Various Pick Lists

Click once on a pick list display header to display all the SMARText items within the pick list.  Select as many medications-in this case-from within SMARText Quick Access, which will then display within the designated field in the documentation. A user can always deselect an item by un-checking its box within SMARText Quick Access.

Remove Unused Items

Remove Unused Items
  1. Right click on the field header, in this example, Medications, and Select Remove Unused Items.
  2. Only the medications or items that were selected for this particular patient will display in the field-meaning the display headers for pick lists that were not used on a patient, will be removed from the documentation.

Additional Information

For more information on pick lists in general, see:  SMARText Items in Pick Lists and Editing Pick Lists.