Build a panel
Describe the columns a team needs in plain language and the column builder finds them in the data underneath, then arrange, calculate and filter until the panel is the worklist for one job.
A panel is built by saying what the team needs to see. The column builder reads the description, finds the matching data in the FHIR resources underneath, and adds the column, so building a pre-op screening worklist is a matter of naming the columns that worklist turns on rather than mapping fields by hand.
This walkthrough builds one from scratch.
Add the columns the team works from
- Open the column builder on the panel.
- Describe the columns you want, in the words the team already uses — patient name, last name first, or date of birth, gender and email. Several at once is fine.
- Check what the builder found before you keep it. It shows the values it would put in the column, so a wrong source is visible while it is still cheap to fix.
- Accept the ones that are right and save.
The builder also picks a column type. A column with a fixed set of values becomes a select column, and each of its values can carry a color, so a status reads at a glance rather than by reading.
Correct the builder when it picks the wrong source
A name can fit more than one field, and the builder will sometimes reach for the wrong one. A scheduled surgery date is the usual example: it can be read as the start date of the care plan, when the date the team means sits on the upcoming encounter.
Say where the value actually lives, such as "it's the start of the future encounter", and the builder looks there instead. Check the values again, then accept.
Step 3 exists for this. The check is quick, and it decides whether a team trusts the panel or keeps second-guessing it.
Let the panel do the arithmetic
Ask for the number the team acts on rather than the date they act from: age in years, days until the surgery date. These are calculated columns, worked out from other columns every time the panel is opened, so they are right today without anyone updating them.
A list sorted by days until surgery is a worklist. A list of surgery dates is a lookup.
Arrange and filter until it is one team's list
With the columns in place:
- Move a column to where the eye needs it. The one that decides who to call first belongs near the name, rather than off the right edge.
- Lock a column so it stays in view while the rest scrolls.
- Filter down to the work in front of the team. A date column filters by period, so a pre-op list becomes this week's surgeries and stops being everything ever scheduled.
Filters set on the panel apply to every view built on it, and filters set on a view apply only there. See Panels and views before setting one you didn't intend everyone to get.
Next steps
Next: Panels and views, to save the setup as views so one panel serves the morning huddle and the follow-up queue without being rebuilt for each.
How Panels stores data
Panels keeps its data as FHIR resources, the standard the rest of healthcare already speaks, which is why a row updates the moment something changes and why one panel can serve many facilities without duplicating it.
Set the accent color in Panels
One accent color in Panels settings drives the sort and filter button, the marker on a sorted column, the selected view tab, the Add Task button and the background tint. Set it once for everyone in the project.