Stu: Welcome back to WEPC with the Epic Guys. You know, Steven, Epic has a lot of different terms for tools that we’re all becoming familiar with. And two important tools are order sets and smartsets. These are prebuilt collections of orders that can save a ton of time and energy when you’re taking care of patients, especially if there’s a little bit of time upfront used to customize them.
Stair: OK, so Stu, what’s the difference between an order set and a smartset? Well, it’s really pretty simple. Order sets are for inpatient, and smartsets are for outpatient. Both types have been built by our analysts over the past year with input from multiple physician subject matter experts in the various specialties across all of our facilities, along with pharmacy, nursing, lab, radiology and many others. Because they’re complex, you can’t create your own order set, but you can customize almost everything. Common inpatient order sets are related to admissions, discharges, pre- and post-procedure, dialysis and many others. You can see these are extensive and have a lot of options you can choose from, from diet orders to imaging to antibiotics.
Outpatient smartsets are generally smaller and contain items like labs, charges, and diagnoses. These are helpful to avoid having to click so many individual orders for certain conditions.
OK, let’s get into our three tips in 3 minutes.
Stu: Tip No. 1: Create your own versions of order sets and smartsets. We strongly recommend managing order sets and smartsets outside of the chart here in the User SmartSets under My Tools. In the User SmartSets Manager, you can search for what you need by facility location. Create a new version and start customizing. Don’t forget the blue links on the right, which take you down to the details that you’ll need. This order set will now apply to any patient when you select it.
Stair: Tip No. 2: Make different versions of the same order set for different situations. Our patients come in all shapes and sizes, so one order set or smartset may not fit every situation. You can create multiple versions of an order set depending on what you need. For example, your cardiac cath pre-procedure orders might become a lower extremity arteriogram order set. Just click on the blue details, find your new procedure and select Lower Extremity Arteriogram, then save your new version.
Stu: Tip No. 3: Share your order sets with your colleagues. Do you notice a recurring theme in some of our tips? Borrowing is absolutely OK in Epic. Not everyone is able to take the time to develop these customizations, and that’s OK. Epic allows you to share order sets and smartsets with your colleagues just like your favorites. Just click Follow User to find your colleague who has created these for the department, and they’re yours.
Stair: Order sets and smartsets are powerful, time-saving tools in Epic. A lot of work has gone into creating these for us, so be sure to take advantage of them. See you next time.
