Doctors and nurses need to take notes all day, keeping record of patient health issues, financial information, and more. Unfortunately, it can be a time-consuming and disorganized process if you’re not careful, and bad note taking could evolve from a mild inconvenience to a truly life-threatening issue for one of your patients.
So what steps can medical professionals take to take notes more efficiently?
Key Problems Resulting From Inefficient Note Taking
First, let’s review the biggest problems that stem from inefficient note taking in the medical industry:
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Inaccurate recording
The obvious potential problem here is inaccurate recording. If you’re taking notes on a patient’s condition, you might write down the wrong symptoms or completely miss an important piece of information. In a worst-case scenario, that can lead to poor patient outcomes.
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Poor organization
Poorly organized notes can also be a problem. If you can’t find what you need when you’re looking for it, it’s going to result in major inefficiencies and delays. It can also disrupt your other coworkers if they’re sharing your notes.
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Wasted time
Most of all, bad note taking wastes time. You spend far longer taking notes with an inefficient system in place and see little to no results.
How to Take Notes More Efficiently
So what steps can you take to take notes more efficiently? You have many strategies to choose from.
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Use the right speech recognition technology.
Your first priority should be using the right speech recognition technology. Speech recognition apps exist to make it easy to dictate your notes and record them automatically. Systems like Dragon Medical One have nearly perfected the art; you’ll find that this piece of software can understand your speech at least as well as other people and record your notes seamlessly and efficiently. If you’re like most people, you’re much faster at speaking than you are writing.
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Devise a straightforward labeling and organization system.
If you want to find your notes in the future, you need some kind of organizational system in place. All your notes should be clearly titled so that you can recognize them later. If you’re using software that helps you organize notes, it’s also a good idea to devise a labeling system. For example, you might label personal notes as blue while labeling meeting notes as red. Your exact system of organization doesn’t matter as much as finding something that works for you.
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Use the right storage and search solution.
It’s also important to find the right storage and search solution. There are many software tools that can help you properly title and label your notes and make it easier for you to find text you’ve written in the past with an interactive search.
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Experiment with different note taking styles.
There are many different ways to take notes. You can write in complete sentences, putting all your thoughts on the page. You can take notes as an outline. You can even use freeform when brainstorming to cluster ideas together based on relevance to each other. Different people benefit from different approaches, so make sure you experiment with at least a few different techniques to learn the pros and cons of each.
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Create habits.
Some people are bad notetakers simply because they don’t take notes very often, and when they do, they are extremely disorganized. It’s in your best interest to create solid habits so that note taking becomes second nature to you. For example, you can make it a habit to always carry a notebook with you if you prefer writing notes by hand.
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When in meetings, record the conversation.
No matter how good you are at taking notes, or how fast you can write, you’re probably going to miss a few things if you’re taking notes during the meeting. That’s why it’s important to record your meetings when possible in addition to taking notes. If the subject matter is important, you can review the entire thing later. If you find that your notes are incomplete or that you forgot something, you can go back and listen to fill the gap.
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Review notes before finalizing them.
Always take the time to review your notes before you finalize them, and try to do it as soon as possible, while the interactions are still fresh in your mind. It’s a great opportunity to make sure you’ve captured everything important in the chance for you to expand upon ideas you had to cut short.
With better and more thorough note taking, doctors, nurses, and other medical professionals can save time and record information more accurately. A small investment in the right software can instantly make you faster and more efficient, and a few tweaks to your daily habits can take you the rest of the way.
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