AngelTrack's Enterprise PCR allows full customization of the values in the NEMSIS dropdown lists.
The Enterprise PCR for EMS allows you to add new picklist values to nearly all of its many dozens of NEMSIS dropdown lists, to meet whatever business or compliance requirements you face.
AngelTrack can report them to your trauma registry in the standard format for custom values.
State Custom Picklist Values
If your state trauma registry publishes any custom picklist values, AngelTrack will import them at the same time as it imports your state's custom fields list. This happens during AngelTrack server startup, and thereafter happens automatically (once a week), and can also be performed manually (whenever you wish) using the Custom EMS PCR Fields Importer.
This capability is necessary for compliance, and so is built in to AngelTrack's EMS Core license; it does not require the Enterprise PCR add-on license.
To learn more about that, please visit the StateDataSet Guide and the Custom EMS PCR Fields Guide.
County Custom Picklist Values
If you imported a StateDataSet document from your county to implement their custom datafields, AngelTrack also imported their custom picklist values, if any, into the PCR for you.
At any time you can repeat that process, and re-import your county's StateDataSet, to pick up any new datafields or picklist values. When you do so, please carefully review the "Source" option, to make sure give AngelTrack an accurate answer of where the StateDataSet document came from.
This capability is necessary for compliance, and so is built in to AngelTrack's EMS Core license; it does not require the Enterprise PCR add-on license.
To learn more about that, please visit the StateDataSet Guide and the Custom EMS PCR Fields Guide.
Creating Your Own Picklist Values
You may create your own custom picklist values for most of the NEMSIS-standard picklist datafields in the EMS PCR. (A few picklist fields are unique to AngelTrack and serve special purposes, and cannot be so extended.)
To do so, follow these steps:
- Login to AngelTrack with Captain or Administrator privileges.
- Go to the Settings page, and click on the Custom EMS Picklist Values item.
- Use the dropdown-list at the top to select the PCR datafield you wish to extend.
- You will see the datafield's existing list of choices appear in the grid.
- Click the add icon
to begin a new item. - In the popover, input the user-friendly text for the new item.
- For the "Reports itself as" choice, select the NEMSIS standard choice which best matches the meaning of the new item. It probably will not be an exact match, but pick the closest one. Further discussion below.
- The "eCustomResults.01" field you can leave it blank, to let AngelTrack automatically generate a unique value.
Click "save", and observe your new value appear in the list.
You cannot create new picklist values that report themselves as a Null Value (such as "[Not recorded]") or as a Pertinent Negative (such as "[Patient refused]").
Enterprise PCR Add-On License Required
Except as noted above for compliance requirements, the ability to add custom items to the PCR's picklists is part of the Enterprise PCR, which is an add-on license for AngelTrack. It is not part of the base product. To learn more, please visit the Enterprise PCR Guide.
Feature Rollout
This feature is rolling out across several AngelTrack builds during Q2 2025:
- Build 545 (in production): First 40 datafields instrumented for user custom picklist values
- Build 546 (in production): Another 30 datafields instrumented.
- Build 547 (in early-access): Another 55 datafields instrumented.
- Build 548: Another 5 datafields instrumented.
- Build 549: Last of the NEMSIS standard datafields instrumented.
In subsequent builds, various datafields unique to AngelTrack -- not in the NEMSIS standard -- will also be instrumented for user-customizable picklist values.
"Reports Itself As"
Every custom picklist value has a "reports itself as" datafield, which controls how the custom picklist value is treated by schematrons (aka state data validation rules) and by AngelTrack's business logic.
For example, suppose you create a new picklist value for the "Complaint" datafield. Suppose your new value is called "Educational", where the crew visits a local high school or vocational college for career days or outreach or recruiting. For this new picklist value, you would configure it to report itself as the standard picklist value named "Standby". Once that's done, AngelTrack will treat any "Educational" call the same as it would treat a "Standby" call, including the special dispatch and billing rules for standby calls. Likewise any state data validation rules will treat the call as a standby, which will probably disable many rules that apply to normal EMS calls.
Once you create a custom picklist value, you cannot ever change its reports-itself-as value, because that value is encoded into the last seven digits of the custom picklist's record ID. If you absolutely need to change it, you must deactivate the custom picklist value you created, and then make a different one.
What is "eCustomResults.01"?
Every custom picklist value must have an identifier for eCustomResults.01. The identifier is used internally in a NEMSIS XML document to link a custom result (i.e. your custom answer for a picklist) back to the NEMSIS datafield that it extends.
The identifier can be anything as long as it's unique, so it's best to let AngelTrack generate it for you, unless you are specifically required to match someone else's custom-results format, for the benefit of a downstream data consumer such as a billing agency.
Editing
You can edit picklist values from these sources:
- National custom
- State custom
- County custom
- Agency custom (these are the picklist values that you personally created)
- AngelTrack built-ins
You cannot edit the standard (base) values, though you can deactivate and reactivate them freely.
When editing items from the national, state, or county level, you can adjust the value text if it requires clarification, but be careful never to modify the eCustomResults.01 identifier, because it is used to match up data in the state's and/or county's trauma registry database.
In no case can you edit the reports-itself-as value; if you need to change it, you must deactivate the item and then create a new one with the desired value.
Deactivating and Reactivating
You may freely deactivate and reactivate your custom picklist values whenever you wish, without impacting existing data. Inactive values remain in AngelTrack forever; they simply cease to appear as choices for new reports.
You can also deactivate any of the NEMSIS standard values from the PCR, and you can reactivate them again later, as necessary to match your documentation requirements and caseload.
You cannot deactivate the NEMSIS standard values for "[Not recorded]", "[Not applicable]", and "[None]".
Vials Tracking / Controlled Substances Datafields
AngelTrack's vials-tracking system is bespoke, not part of the NEMSIS specification, and so cannot be extended by this system.
The vials tracking system appends its data to AngelTrack's NEMSIS XML output, using eCustomResults nodes in a format emulating the format expected by most state trauma registries.
Stroke-Screen Fields
You can extend the available items in the stroke-screen fields shown on the PCR-Vitals page, as can your state and your county. However, you cannot extend the stroke-screen results generated by the interactive stroke panels shown by the PCR-Assessment page, because it is bespoke, and because its NEMSIS XML output is already arranged to emulate the various stroke-screen custom fields expected by state trauma registries.