Templates for Patient Documents
Overview
This feature is new as of OpenEMR release 4.1.3. It provides the ability to upload documents in an Open Document format (MS Word or OpenOffice or LibreOffice), or as plain text or perhaps other formats, and use them as boilerplate for creating documents that can then be uploaded to the patient documents area in the usual way.
The uploaded documents may contain any of these keywords:
- {PatientName}
- {PatientID}
- {PatientDOB}
- {DOS} (Date of service)
- {ReferringDOC}
- {ChiefComplaint}
- {Allergies}
- {ProblemList}
- {PatientSex}
- {Address} (street address only i.e. 1224 Oakdale Rd.)
- {City}
- {State}
- {Zip}
- {PatientPhone} (output in this form: (000)000-0000)
Installing a Template
Template uploading is done via a new menu item, Miscellaneous -> Document Templates.
Using a Template
In the documents area, a drop-list has been added where you may select and download a document. The downloaded document will have its keywords replaced with actual data from the currently selected patient and encounter. You can then do final edits with your word processing app, save it (perhaps as a PDF), and upload as a patient document in the usual way.
Problems
One gotcha is that the word processing apps might insert XML tags randomly into the middle of keywords as you type them in. This keeps them from being recognized as keywords at download time. What works is to keep a list of them somewhere as plain text and copy-and-paste to insert them into the document.
