Custom fields are useful for adding data fields to a custom note template in order to meet the specific requirements of the note.

To configure custom fields, go to Configure–>Customization–>Custom Fields.  Click Add Custom Field.

Choose the "Object Type" as 'Note'.

Then choose the note template to be customized from the "Template" drop-down.  Below, a custom note template for a SOAP note has been chosen.  For this example, custom labels have already been assigned to reflect "Subjective", "Objective", and "Assessment" (based on a clinical PIE note) in the Custom Labels screen.

The "Label" field is used to provide the title of the field to be added. In this example, the field will be titled "Plan".

From the "Type" drop down, users can choose the type of data field to be entered on the custom note template.  Choices include text, long text, date, number, section header, and drop-down list.  This allows users to have control over both the form and function of the data field.  While these options are mostly self-explanatory, it should be noted that the difference between text and long text is that long text holds as many characters as needed. For note fields requiring paragraphs or longer, this is the recommended field type. A small amount of text should be satisfied by the text field type. Section Header is simply a header field that separates one group of data fields from another. 

For this example, a "long text" type has been chosen.  This allows for plenty of narrative documentation to be entered on the SOAP note for the corresponding "Plan" section. 

The "Position" drop down allows the user to choose the position of the data field on the custom note template.  Choices include header, body, and footer.  Note that a long text field can only be placed in the Body. Any header and footer fields will repeat on multiple pages.

A "Required" check box is included and can be checked if the particular data field should be marked as a required field. 

Click Save to add the custom field to the note template.  

To review the fields on the note form, go to the Notes Desktop and add a note, selecting the template the fields were applied to.