DrChrono Blog

I don’t always recommend software but today I am going to talk about something called keyboard macros software.

What is a keyboard macro? Is is a piece of software that will allow a physician or staff member to hit a sequence of keys on a Mac and the sequence of keys are replaced by some text you have designated in the software to replace the sequence of keys. So for example you can designate the text “.suture” to expand into a larger bit of text like “Surgical suture used on patient. Dissolving thread used.”

The software I use for Mac is TextExpander. TextExpander is a bit expensive but well worth it, you can download and try it out for free. TextExpander will run around $35.00 dollars.

I haven’t used this software for PC, but have hear good things about Phrase Express. Phrase Express will run around $50.00 dollars.

We have macros on iPad and on Web, but having macro text sequence expansion is another tool that every physician should look into, if you have a Mac I highly recommend TextExpander, it will make documenting even easier.  A large number of our physician user base uses TextExpander as well to speed up documenting. If you give yourself time with TextExpander you can become an expert, another great thing is you can share your keyboard macros with others in your medical practice.

Below is a video showing at a high level how TextExpander works –

How do I do this on iPad, iPod Touch & iPhone?

For iPad, iPod Touch and iPad you don’t have to buy anything! Keyboard Macros are already built in, more on how to use this can be found in my blog post called “How to create medical macros, keyword shortcuts in iOS“.