The form fields that are selected for each question will determine the quality of a form and the quality of the data you collect in your EHR software. It’s important that you understand each of the different field types to make sure you’re selecting the one that works best for your purposes.
You guessed it – phone number fields should be used when the form requires a phone number be inputted. We’re used to reading and relaying phone numbers in a 3 – 3 – 4 number format. Using a phone number field allows you to record phone numbers in this manner. This ensures that those completing or reading the form can easily complete or understand the content of the field.
While not the most critical choice you’ll make, using a specific phone number field instead of, say, a numerical field will ensure it never shows as a string of numbers that could be mistaken for something else, like currency.
(555) 555-555 means something completely different from $555,555,555.00 and should be treated differently in organized data.
