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.
We’ve all asked the inevitable small talk question “And what do you do?” Typically, you receive a generalization of someone’s job in simple terms that contain no industry jargon. But if you discover that you’re both in the same field, the conversation immediately switches. You start using industry specific terms and comparing the true details of your jobs.
When assessing the data fields you’re using in your electronic health record, you will find the need for specialty fields. These unique fields are specific to your industry or services. They may behave similarly to the field types we’ve discussed before, but the logic behind them operates differently.
Working with Unique Field Types
An example of a specialty field type would be a Primary Diagnosis single select dropdown field. This field behaves like a single select dropdown, but the logic behind it is slightly different. A client can only have one Primary Diagnosis. To maintain your data integrity, you’ll want an electronic health record that recognizes that. The logic behind this specialty field operates so that every mention of the client’s Primary Diagnosis would update when it is changed in one location.
Diagnosis is a field in behavioral health that you don’t want to leave up to the form creator to populate the possible selections.
This specialty field for example ensures that you’re picking the proper Diagnosis and corresponding ICD-10 codes for compliance and billing purposes.
When selecting the field types you want to use in your form, you want to select the ones that make the form the easiest to understand and complete. Investing time in working with these specialty field types can streamline the time your staff spends on documentation and make them more efficient.
