You can create your own custom PCR signature forms which include custom PCR datafields. This allows you to build your own questionnaires and attestation forms.
Creating a Custom PCR Signature Form
You may already know that you can add a custom signature form to the PCR, with whatever legal verbiage you like. Your custom signature form can "act like" any of the built-in signature forms; for example, you could create a "Hardship Payment Authorization" form that acts like a "Payment Authorization" form for the sake of AngelTrack's business logic and signature requirements.
To learn more about that, please visit the Document Templates Guide.
In this knowledgebase article, you will learn how to add custom fields (choices / picklists / textboxes / numbers) to your signature forms, to collect additional pieces of data.
Enterprise PCR Add-On License Required
This feature requires the Enterprise PCR add-on license. Without that license, the PCR is limited to its built-in signature forms.
To learn more about that, please visit the Enterprise PCR Guide.
Adding Custom Fields to a PCR Signature Form
You can add custom fields to any PCR signature form, allowing you to collect whatever additional pieces of information you like.
To do so, first you must learn how AngelTrack's custom PCR fields work. Please visit the Custom EMS PCR Fields Guide for a primer.
When you are ready to create your first custom PCR field and add it to a signature form, follow these steps:
- Login to AngelTrack with Captain or Administrator privileges.
- Go to the Settings page, then select the "Custom EMS PCR Fields" item.
- From the upper-right corner, click the add
icon. - Using what you learned from the primer, make your selections to define your new field. If this is your very first one, then try a simple yes/no field. Set its minimum value to "Yes", and phrase the field's name such that a "yes" answer is good while a "no" answer is bad. For example, instead of writing "Patient is unresponsive," write it as "Patient is responsive", so that "yes" is the satisfactory answer. That way, AngelTrack can flag any "no" answer in red.
- Input any necessary clarifications into the "Description" box. These will be displayed to the user, in smaller font directly beneath the field's name.
- For your new field's PCR location, choose "Signature forms". This is mandatory if you want to place your field onto a signature form.
- Save the field when you're finished.
- Return to the Settings page, and select the "Document Templates" item.
- Select the signature form to which you want to add the new field. (You could also create a new signature form and add it to that instead.)
- When the signature form editor opens, scroll down and find the "Custom fields" section. You will see your new custom field in the list, so check the box to add it to the form, and then save. You can add your custom field to as many different signature forms as you like.
Now visit the PCR, and open the signature form, and you'll see your new field, waiting to be answered. Once an answer is collected, try printing the PCR, and you'll see the answer appear in the printout directly underneath the signature graphic. If the answer is below minimum, then your answer will be highlighted in red.
Creating Entirely New Forms
You can create a whole new kind of signature form, and populate it with all new fields of your own creation, whenever you like. It is similar to creating new fields and adding them to a PCR extension tab, except it also captures an electronic signature, plus it can "act like" any of the built-in signature forms.
Here are some examples of forms you could create:
- Patient Hardship Application
- Parental Consent for Transport of a Minor
- Customer Feedback Form
- Ridealong Indemnification and Identity
- Alternate Financial Responsibility
- CP Counseling Session Summary
- Narcan Education / Administration Report
- Equipment Failure Report
- Mutual Aid Patient Transfer
- New Recurring Patient Questionnaire
- Stretcher Requirement Assessment
- POLST Form
Minimum Values / Guidelines
You've seen that each custom field can have a minimum value, where any answer below the minimum will be flagged in red. This is the same system as used for your checklists, by the way. After the patient or other signatory provides an answer for the field, and signs the form, any below-minimum answer will be flagged in red -- right on the form (so as to get the crew member's attention in case of a problem), and also in the PCR printout.
These minimum values are called "Guidelines" when they appear on a signature form, but they act just like minimum values do elsewhere in AngelTrack. A patient or crew member is free to report a below-minimum value; they do not obstruct data entry or report completion, instead they are purely advisory.
Required Fields
You probably noticed that each custom field has a group of settings for when it must be answered. When a custom field appears on a signature form, its requirements take effect, preventing signature collection until an answer is provided.
If a custom field is required only when transport occurs, its requirement will not activate until the crew marks themselves "transporting"; until the crew does that, the field will be optional.
Sort Order
The custom fields on a signature form -- and, for that matter, on any PCR page -- always sort themselves alphabetically. Therefore, if you want to command a certain sort order, do so by prepending numbers or letters to the names of your custom fields, like this:
- A. Patient last name
- B. Patient first name
- C. Patient is adult?
- D. Reason for application
- E. Additional comments
Deactivation and Reactivation
You can deactivate and reactivate your custom fields at any time, without loss of data. When you deactivate a custom field, any answers already captured will remain on file and visible in the PCR, in printouts, and in NEMSIS exports.
NEMSIS Reportability
Signature forms are always reportable via NEMSIS to your state trauma registry. Each signature form has a set of "NEMSIS report as" options. These options will communicate to the EMS trauma registry what is signified by the signed form. The built-in list contains the standard NEMSIS values, but you can add new choices via AngelTrack's custom picklist values system, if any downstream consumer of your data (such as your billing system) needs to specifically identify a signature type.
Any attached custom field will be reported with it (as an eCustomResult) if the field is marked as NEMSIS reportable -- an option you control.