New clinical notes update

Hi ​@Jess0ca , 

Thanks for taking the time to post this. We hear you that the new clinical notes feel different and that the extra steps are may take some getting used to, when you were comfortable with the old flow.

Based on user feedback, we moved to one note per appointment so everything from that visit sits in a single place easier to find later, review, and finish without jumping between treatment tabs. You can still write notes the same way you always have.

We have also added full appointment recording which will allow you to capture the consult and summarise into your template. This should help reduce the admin burden and improve accuracy of notes.

It might take a little getting used to but these should help:

• Help Centre: Appointment-level clinical notes (how the new flow works, including saving and locking)
• Training: Dentally Academy has a webinar your team can watch back

We are not planning to revert the experience, but we do want concrete feedback so we can improve it. Happy to jump on a call and discuss more, please reply if you'd like to be involved.

Thanks, 

Amy 

Hi Amy,

Thank you for the response.

I think the move to a single note per appointment makes complete sense, and I can see the benefits of having everything from a visit stored in one place.

The feedback from our team is less about the concept and more about the user experience and layout. The previous note style was very intuitive and easy to navigate at a glance. With the new design, having notes appear in side panels and additional pop-up windows feels more cumbersome and less efficient during a busy clinical day.

One of the biggest challenges is visibility. Previously, clinicians could quickly see and review notes without needing to open multiple panels. Now, there seems to be more clicking and opening of windows to access information that was previously immediately visible. The workflow feels less intuitive and adds friction to something that was previously very straightforward.

We are also finding that the screen feels more cluttered, while at the same time requiring additional steps to access key information. For a clinical environment where speed, accuracy and ease of use are critical, this has been a noticeable change.

I appreciate that the system will not be reverting, but I wanted to share this feedback as I think there is a difference between changing the underlying structure (one note per appointment) and changing the visual workflow that users had become familiar with. Keeping more of the previous look and feel while introducing the new functionality may have made the transition easier for teams.

Thank you for continuing to gather feedback.

Adding to this to give further feedback. The loss of being able to search for notes associated to individual teeth is a real step backwards for me as I used the clinical history search to look up the history of teeth on a daily basis. I also often leave notes against planned treatment items for the treatment appointment and don’t think this can be done any more

I also find the creation of a task for writing notes a completely unnecessary thing and wish there was a way that it could be turned off - i was advised need to have advance or advance plus plan but these aren’t options in the pricing scheme that I can see - we currently have Pro.

Appreciate it’s new and a big change but initial thoughts are that it is a step backwards in terms of ease of use and practical note keeping

I agree with Hazel, this has been feedback from all of my clinicans and admin as you cannot add information to be easily seen, the task ghas confused a number of people and meant that the notes are locked before the clinician has finished