Make It Write Like You

Note settings

Left alone, Abridge drafts four sections. Your note preferences decide which sections generate, whether each one reads concise or comprehensive, bulleted or paragraph, and which physical exam template it follows. Set them once in the Abridge activity and every future note follows them.

1

Open the settings menu

Click on the Abridge activity and then the triple line settings button.

2

Click Preferences

It is the first item in the menu, above Set up voiceprint.

3

Click Note settings

The PREFERENCES page opens. Note settings is the first row, and it is where the section by section choices live.

a

Specialty and toggles

Set your Primary Specialty, then leave Orders and Note Preferences On. For most all providers those two stay On.

b

History of Present Illness

Style: concise or comprehensive. Format: bulleted or paragraph. The example on the right rewrites itself as you choose.

c

Physical Exam

Pick a template, then a style. Conservative if you verbalize or dictate all of your exam findings and do targeted, detailed exams. Limited Template if you talk the patient through the exam ("I'm listening to your heart now") and only mention select pertinent findings. Expanded Template if you want your whole template output on every exam and only want to verbalize the atypical findings, which replace the normal ones.

d

Assessment and Plan

The same two choices, style and format, applied to your Assessment and Plan.

e

Patient Summary (PVS)

This is the summary the patient reads. Concise or comprehensive. Pull it into Patient Instructions with the .ambientptinstructions SmartPhrase.

f

Note sections, then Save

Check the sections you want in the Abridge editor. Leaving all of them checked is what I recommend. Then click Save Settings.

Cycles on its own. Click a step to hold it there, or click the screenshot to enlarge it.

Nothing sticks until you click Save Settings at the bottom of the page. After that, every note Abridge drafts for you follows these preferences.

Note preferences in plain language

This is the one I would not skip. Back on the PREFERENCES page, Note preferences holds free text instructions that apply to all future notes. Click Edit preferences and paste the text below into the box. The ambient SmartText only pulls in History of Present Illness, Physical Exam, Results, and Assessment and Plan. This instruction appends the rest of the history you discussed, past medical, past surgical, home medications, allergies, social, and family history, to the bottom of your HPI so it comes in with the note.

Edit it as you see fit. Anything you leave in the box applies to every future note you generate.

1. HISTORY SECTIONS
At the bottom of the HPI, append a single block containing these sections in this order: Past Medical History, Past Surgical History, Home Medications, Allergies, Social History, Family History. Format each as one line with all items comma-separated:

Past Medical History: X, Y, Z
Past Surgical History: X, Y, Z
Home Medications: X, Y, Z
Allergies: X, Y, Z
Social History: X, Y, Z
Family History: X, Y, Z

Hospital Medications: X, Y, Z

Put a paragraph break between Family History and Hospital Medications.
Omit any section entirely if it was not discussed in the encounter. Never write "not discussed" or leave an empty header.
Distinguish home medications from hospital medications when stated. If a medication's context is not explicitly stated, classify it as a hospital medication.

Save Settings at the bottom of the page, and the next note you generate follows it.

Or just say it in a sentence

You can also set a preference by typing it into Abridge AI chat as a sentence, for example "always use a bulleted medication section." Abridge saves it and applies it to every future note. Preferences can be edited or removed the same way ("remove my preference about review of systems") or on the Preferences page. The plus sign at the bottom left of the Abridge AI chat box opens Manage all preferences, where your saved prompts and note preferences live together.

To see a note without your preferences, press Redraft, toggle Note preferences off, and choose Generate all sections. Then Replace all or Dismiss all. The Note preferences master toggle is in Preferences, then Note settings.

Prompt editing after the visit

In the Abridge tab, type an instruction such as "make the note more concise" or "move follow-up items under their problems in the A&P," review the suggested edits, then accept or reject them. If you made those edits in the Abridge tab after the note was already pulled into Epic, click Send to EHR to push the updated note back. If you have not pulled the note in yet, your Ambient speed button brings in the edited version and Send to EHR is not needed.

Bookmark prompts you use often. A saved prompt can be promoted to a permanent preference with the copy icon on the Note preferences page, which turns a one time instruction into how your notes are always written.

Put Abridge content in your own note templates

The Abridge dot phrases are .HPISEC (History of Present Illness), .PESEC (Physical Exam), .RESULTSEC (Results), and .APSEC (Assessment and Plan). Add them to your own SmartPhrase or note template so the content lands in the right section every time.

1. In Epic, open My SmartPhrases.
2. Open your template, or click New.
3. Put the cursor where the Abridge content belongs.
4. Type the dot phrase name and press Enter to nest it.
5. Click Accept.

If you are hesitant, start with .HPISEC alone. Note that the Ambient speed button already pulls the four sections in; this is for providers who want Abridge content inside a template they already use.

Use your existing physical exam template

If you already have an exam macro in Epic, you do not have to rebuild it. Copy its text, then load it into Abridge once.

1. Copy the text of your exam macro out of Epic.
2. In the Abridge tab, open the menu (three lines, upper left), then Note Settings, then Physical Exam Settings.
3. Click Add a Custom Template, or the Library tab and the plus sign.
4. Click Upload Template, paste your text, name it, and click Save Template.
5. Avoid special characters such as / or + in the template.
6. Structure each line as SYSTEM HEADER: Finding 1, Finding 2.
7. Select it as your default, and set the style to Expanded.

Expanded means your whole template is output on every note, with what you said during the exam incorporated.

Saved templates can be reviewed and edited any time from the Library tab at the top of the Settings page.

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