Clinical

Notes and Source Material

How to use the Session Workspace for source material and note drafting, then review, edit, save, and sign notes.

Notes in PracticeRunner are designed to start where clinicians already are: with the material from the session, the clinician’s judgment, and the format the practice uses for documentation.

Use the Session Workspace when you want to bring in source material or draft from material connected to the appointment. Source material can include pasted rough notes or an external transcript, an uploaded document or image, photos of handwritten material, appointment audio or an uploaded audio or video file when transcription is enabled, or an attachment that is already on the appointment.

Use the notes page or note dialog when you want a simpler review and editing surface: write directly, clean up existing text, save, sign, print, or unlock a note when your workflow allows it. Source material is meant to help you prepare the note. It is not the final clinical note until you review, edit, and save or sign the note yourself.

Starting a note

Open the appointment, then choose Session Workspace when you want to start from source material. The Start note from section in the workspace is for bringing in outside material:

Paste source text when you have a transcript, rough notes, or other text from outside PracticeRunner.
Upload document when the material is in a PDF, image, DOCX, RTF, ODT, TXT, Markdown, CSV, or TSV file.
Take photo when you want to capture paper notes or a printed page with the camera on your device.
Record audio or Upload audio or video when your practice has enabled transcription and has obtained appropriate consent.
Use existing attachment when the appointment already has a document attached.

If you do not need source material, you can write directly in the note field from the workspace, notes page, or note dialog. The goal is to avoid forcing every practice into one documentation path. A clinician may start with a blank note after a routine session, paste a transcript after a consultation, upload a document from another system, or photograph handwritten notes after an in-person visit.

Using pasted text

Pasted source text in the Session Workspace is useful when you have material from somewhere else and want it available while writing the note. This may include a transcript, a rough outline, previous system notes, or brief session reminders.

When clinician-controlled note drafting tools are enabled, pasted text can also be used as source material for a draft or rewrite. When those features are not enabled, you can still paste material and use it as a reference while writing manually.

Uploading documents and taking photos

Uploaded documents and images in the Session Workspace can be used as source material for the appointment note. If a file already contains usable text, such as a DOCX, ODT, RTF, TXT, Markdown, CSV, TSV, or text-native PDF, PracticeRunner can use that text directly. Scanned pages and photos may need OCR text extraction first.

Legacy .doc files are not readable for note drafting yet. Save those files as DOCX, PDF, RTF, ODT, or TXT before uploading them as source material.

The photo option uses the device camera and can capture more than one page into a single PDF. When the browser exposes more than one camera, the capture dialog lets you choose which camera to use.

Simple markdown formatting

The note editor supports simple markdown-backed formatting for common clinical note structure:

bold
italic
bulleted lists
numbered lists

The editor shows the formatted note while keeping the stored text simple. Printed notes render the same basic formatting, so bold section labels and lists appear cleanly on the printed page.

Clinician-controlled drafting tools during the pilot

Clinician-controlled drafting tools and Revise note are optional note tools during the current pilot phase, and they are free while the pilot is active.

These tools are off by default. Your practice chooses whether to enable them, and clinicians choose when to use them in supported workflows. Processing runs under PracticeRunner’s HIPAA and BAA safeguards. Client information is used only to provide the requested feature and is not used to train AI models.

These tools are meant to reduce drafting friction, not replace clinical review. The clinician remains responsible for deciding what belongs in the note, correcting errors, removing unnecessary detail, and confirming that the final note fits the care provided.

Depending on what is enabled for your organization, these tools can help:

revise the note you have already written
draft a note from workspace source material, such as pasted text, a transcript, extracted document text, or OCR text from a scanned attachment
rewrite a note into a selected format, such as SOAP, DAP, or a custom note template configured by the practice

Revise note creates a revised draft from the current note. It can improve wording, organization, and note structure while preserving the clinical meaning and source level of detail. Review the result before saving or signing.

Signing and review

Before saving or signing a note, read it as you would any other clinical documentation. Source material can include transcription errors, irrelevant details, duplicated text, or information that should not be included in the final record.

Once a note is signed or locked by your practice workflow, editing may be limited. Make sure the final note reflects your professional judgment before you complete it.