View Treatment Notes screen. View Video, 2 min. 51 sec.

Click Globalize and the entire history will be placed in the scrollable editing window. Each treatment note will be headed by a line indicating the date of the note, the patient, and the provider. Each note will also be separated by a space (linefeed). When your search function finds a qualifying word or phrase, the editing window will scroll to that location and highlight the word so it is plainly visible within the editing window. You are also given the choice to continue searching for more matches if desired. You cannot do anything to the text within the globalized editing window. Globalized text is for the purpose of searching and viewing only. To get out of the globalized mode, just click a note in the list box section of the screen (the smaller bottom window).

Printing Treatment Notes
To print a hard copy of your patient’s treatment notes, click the Print button on the Treatment Progress Notes entry screen. The Treatment Notes Printing Parameters screen will appear. You can print a specific date range or the entire history. You can sort the notes by most recent first (Descending) or most recent last (Ascending). You can include or exclude notes that have been struck from the record with the STRIKETHRU feature.

Locking Treatment Notes
In days of old, the protocol for treatment notes was that they would always be written in ink. Treatment notes were never to be erased. And if a treatment note needed to be removed, that would be accomplished by drawing a line through the note like this. The line out or strikethrough was not to obliterate the original note. A strikethrough should still be able to be read, although the reader would know that the note has been struck from the record. Nothing should be hidden when writing treatment notes.

Diamond Dental Software’s Treatment Note module follows these same guidelines. Treatment notes can be automatically locked. Once a treatment note is locked it cannot be modified or added to. The only thing you can do with a locked treatment note is to strike it out, either whole or in part. Automatic Treatment Note Locking is set from the User Defaults screen. This is accessed via the Utilities Menu. You may select treatment notes to be locked automatically after 1 day all the way to after 31 days. You also have the choice to set this option to Never which will cause treatment notes to not lock automatically. While the Treatment Notes are not locked, you may freely go into them and modify, add to, or delete them at will. There are no restrictions on modifying unlocked treatment notes. Once a treatment note is locked, it may NOT be modified. You cannot change locked treatment notes in any way other than striking them with the STRIKETHRU function. Locked treatment notes display a lock icon.

Striking Out Treatment Notes (STRIKETHRU)
Treatment notes that have been locked cannot be modified, but they can be struck from the record. Notes that have been struck do not appear in the standard display as seen on the Treatment Progress Notes entry screen. To show notes that have been struck, click the Show Strikethru button. The notes will then appear in their regular entry order. A strikethrough note has a line through it like you see on this sentence. You can still read it but you know it has been struck from the record.