How to use the Clinical Form Builder

What is the context of the article?

In Meddbase, forms are a vital aspect of any consultation or patient experience. From simple to complex, it is important you are able to record vital information to help provide the best level of care.

The Meddbase Form Builder is a multipurpose tool that allows you to curate your own bespoke Clinical Form and Questionnaires, with various controls to support your team in getting the correct and appropriate information. 

 A user conducting a Consultation is presented with a Clinical Form, which is a set of various types of fields, e.g Free Text fields or Dropdown menus and more, allowing the user to capture specific information regarding their encounter with the patient. This information will then be updated in the patient's Medical Record.

The Clinical Form Builder allows you to curate Clinical Forms with the option to enable mandatory fields. This is available via the following link:  form-builder.meddbase.com

Please note: Clinical Forms can only be accessed from within a Consultation.

Note: For guidance on how to use the Questionnaire Builder, please refer to How to use the Questionnaire Builder

What is the purpose of the article?

This article is designed to guide you through the process of accessing the Clinical Form Builder as well as creating, amending and previewing Clinical Forms within the platform. 

This guide will walk you through the entire process, from the initial creation of a Clinical Form to exporting and requesting a Clinical Form import into your chamber.

This article is split into the following sections:

1. Form Builder Layout
2. Getting started with the Clinical Form Builder
   
   • Adding Controls 
   • Copy, cut and paste for faster workflows
   • Reordering Controls
3. Amending Controls
4. Adding required questions
5. Next Steps
6. Terminology, Types of Controls and Settings
   • Types of Controls
   • Types of Control Settings

Form Builder Layout

The Form Builder is divided into 5 core sections: 

1. Tour wizard - When first loading the Form Builder, this will pop up, however can be exited at any time. To re-open the tour wizard, press the ?.
2. Tool bar - 
   1. 1. New Clinical Form- Start a new Clinical Form - this will wipe any existing Clinical Form in the Builder. Article here: How to use the Simple Clinical Form Builder – Meddbase Help Center
      2. New Questionnaire- Start a new questionnaire form. This will redirect to the builder with relevant questions
      3. Open - Load an existing Clinical Form into the builder. Please note: This is not available with Questionnaires.
      4. Save - Save the Clinical Form to your device as a .xml file.
      5. Print - Print the Clinical Form.
      6. Cut - Cut questions to your clip board.
      7. Copy - Copy questions to your clip board.
      8. Delete - Delete a control.
      9. Undo - Undo your last action.
3. Outline view -
   1. 1. ⋮ - A Drop down menu to Add, Re-order, Paste questions.
      2.  - Copy selected control to clipboard.
      3. - Cut selected control to clipboard.
      4.  - Delete selected control.
4. Settings panel - Modify control settings.
5. Preview panel- A preview of the questions as they would look in a consultation, updated in real time.

Getting started with the Clinical Form Builder

When you open the Clinical Form Builder, a pop-up wizard will appear to guide you through using the interface.  Small dialog boxes will guide you through core functionality of the Builder by pressing next or previous. You may exit out of the wizard at any time by pressing the X located in the upper right corner of the dialog box.

Adding Controls 

1. Press the ⋮ button next to the section to begin adding controls to your form. Clicking Add Inside will add controls inside of the form.

2. A pop-up window will appear. On the left-hand side, you can select the type of control you would like to add. The control's function is explained on the top right-hand side, in italic font. 

Controls may be question controls such as buttons, notes and dates or to organise questions, such as groups, tables and panels. 

3. Customise your control settings on the right-hand side of the pop-up window.

Depending on the control added, you are able to customise various aspects of the control, from name to assigning a unique key to the width of the control. Not all controls will have the same customisation settings. See Types of Control Settings.

Top tip: It is good practice to organise controls of a similar nature into groups. This helps to divide the clinical form into clear, distinct segments that are aligned to sections of the patient's medical record. 

4. Continue to add controls using Add after or Add before. If inserting a control inside of a group, table or panel, Add inside will also appear.

To read more about the controls available and their functions, see Types of Controls.

The video below is a demonstration of adding different controls into your Clinical Form. Highlighting the different options to Add Inside, Add After, Add Before.

Copy, cut and paste for faster workflows

Now you have multiple controls, within groups, tables or panels, you can copy, cut and paste these for a faster workflow. Copy or cut controls to your clip board to paste inside, after or before.

1. Click on the control you want to duplicate.
2. Click Copy to store this to your clipboard.
3. Click 3 dots next to the control you want to paste above or below of.
4. Select Paste inside, Paste after or Paste before.

The control/s will now be pasted into your Clinical Form and you can begin to amend their settings.

Top tip: This is useful when needing to create multiple controls in fewer clicks, such as copying large groups with additional organisational controls.

Reordering controls

Controls within a form can be reorganised at any stage. You can reorder the order of elements on the form and within groups, tables and panels.

1. Click on the organisational control you want to reorder the internal elements of

2. Click 3 dots and Reorder

3. Drag and drop to organise your controls

4. Press the X in the top right corner to see your changes.

The video below demonstrates how to reorder controls in a group and in a form. Watch the Preview panel to see real time updates to the structure of the form.

Amending Controls

After adding controls, you can further make individual adjustments to control settings using the panel located at the bottom left-hand side of the page. All settings initially set during control creation can be modified at any point using the following process:

1. Select the control you wish to amend.
2. Make amendments to the control settings in the bottom left panel.
3. Open control settings in a larger window by press the arrow in the top right corner of the panel to display all settings.
4. To exit, select another control or press the x at the top right of the settings panel.

Please note: Changes are automatically updated and displayed in the Preview Panel in real time.

The video below demonstrates how to change the control settings in both the settings panel and in a large window. Watch the Preview panel to see real time updates to the controls.

Adding required questions

Required questions allow you to ensure clinicians are answering important questions. You will need to add a button to help enforce this. Buttons have a setting which allows you to determine whether Required Questions must be answered before the action can proceed.

This could be a discharge button, with a discharge action with a strict required question setting. This means in order for the clinician to discharge the patient, they must answer all questions marked as required.

1. Enable "Required" setting on your desired control.
2. Add a button.
3. Amend the Required Questions setting to Warn or Strict to enforce required questions.

The video below demonstrates how to enable required questions and enforce them using a button.

Previewing Forms

There are two ways you can preview your form. This is useful if you want to see how this will look within a consultation.

1. Preview Panel:

Forms are automatically previewed on the right-hand side of the screen. 
The preview screen is also interactable, allowing you to test clinical forms as you build or amend them.

2. Print preview:

On the tool bar, there is an option to Print the Clinical Form. This will open the Print dialog window, where you can save the Clinical form as a PDF to your device. 

Exporting Forms and Next Steps

Now you have created your form, you will need to export your form out of the Clinical Form Builder  and into a file that will be shared with your CAM/Support. From there, your form will be uploaded this into your Chamber ready for you to use.

To do this, you need to: 

1. Press the Save button at the top of the Clinical Form Builder interface.

NB: The Clinical Form Builder does not autosave your progress, you will need to manually save any changes made.

2. Save the document locally to your computer under a suitable name.

3. Raise a support ticket through Zendesk and provide them with a copy of the saved Clinical Form (.xml). The team will organise for this to be imported into your chamber. 

Terminology, Types of Controls and Settings

SNOMED (CT) - (Systematised Nomenclature of Medicine Clinical Terms) is a standard clinical terminology used in healthcare. It assigns unique numerical codes to clinical concepts, aiding precise identification. 

Controls - Customisable input fields, allowing users to define specific data entry points tailored to clinical documentation requirements. (See 'Types of Controls').

Top tip: Most control settings come with a description either above the text entry box or when your mouse hovers over an option.

Types of Controls

Types of Control Settings

Review date

This article was last updated on 26th of March 2024