SBAR intake: the patient form

What you’ll do

Fill in the patient form Synapse uses for admits and edits. Either the Quick Entry layout (one screen, fast) or the Detailed SBAR layout (four steps: Situation, Background, Assessment, Recommendation). Synapse picks one for you based on your specialty and language.

Why nurses use this

SBAR is what report sounds like. SBAR is what a rapid response call sounds like. SBAR is what a charge-nurse update sounds like. Capturing a patient in the same structure you’re going to talk about the patient in saves you doing the translation twice. The form is a thinking aid.

How to get there

Multiple paths.

• Add a patient: double-tap the Patients chip → form opens.
• Edit a patient: double-tap a patient card on the deck → edit form.
• From nursebrain.com: the “Try this” buttons open the form directly in the Quick Entry layout. See coming from nursebrain.com.

Step-by-step

1. Land on the form. Synapse renders one of two layouts:

   • Quick Entry: a single free-text area. Write a few sentences about the patient and Synapse fills in the fields. “Bed 4, 72yo M, chest pain admit overnight, troponin pending, allergic to PCN.” Most working-nurse use. If that’s your layout, skip to step 6.
   • Detailed SBAR: four sequential steps (Situation, Background, Assessment, Recommendation). Used for nursing-school work where SBAR structure is the point, and for languages where Quick Entry isn’t available yet. Steps 2–5 below describe this path.

2. Fill the Situation. (Detailed SBAR only.) What’s going on with the patient right now? Chief complaint, bed, presenting reason. This is what you’d say first if a rapid response called you.

3. Fill the Background. PMH, home meds, baseline status. The “who is this patient” outside of today’s event.

4. Fill the Assessment. What you found. Vitals, exam findings, labs/diagnostics, code status, allergies. The clinical picture in your hands.

5. Fill the Recommendation. What needs to happen. Pending orders, planned interventions, what you want a covering nurse to do.

6. Let Quick Entry do the work. (Quick Entry only.) Write the narrative, and Synapse fills in the fields when you save. It works the same way as Dictate Patient, just with typing instead of talking. Review what filled in and edit any field directly.

7. Save. The Save button enforces the required fields for your form. If it’s greyed out, something required is still empty.

Tips from the floor

• Specialty drives the fields. ICU shows drips, vent settings, ventilator mode. Med-surg shows mobility, diet, isolation. OB shows gestational age, fetal monitoring. If your fields look wrong, your specialty might be set wrong. Check in Settings.
• Coming from nursebrain.com, you’ll see Quick Entry. The “Try this” buttons open the fast layout so you can feel it working on the first patient.
• The Save button isn’t broken. If Save is disabled, you’re missing a required field. Scroll up and look for the field that didn’t get filled.
• The form is a thinking aid. Even when you know the patient cold, filling in SBAR forces you to surface the Recommendation before you save. That’s the part you forget in the moment.
• You can edit any field later. Double-tap the patient card on the deck to re-open the edit form. Nothing is locked.

Common questions

Why does Synapse have two layouts? Working nurses want speed; nursing students want the structure. Specialty + language picks the right one for you.

What’s Quick Entry actually doing? You write free-form text (“72yo M, bed 4, chest pain, troponin pending, allergic to PCN”) and Synapse fills in the SBAR fields from what you wrote. Same idea as Dictate Patient, typed instead of spoken.

Can I share an SBAR with another nurse? Yes. Generate a QR for the patient. The SBAR fields, code status, allergies, and attached notes travel together. See QR handoff.

Can I create my own template? The Brain Sheet Builder is the place for custom layouts (brain sheet builder). System templates for the patient form are tied to specialty and shipped with the app; you can’t author those yourself yet.

What languages is the form available in? EN/ES/FR/PT. Quick Entry is English-first today; other languages use the guided four-step SBAR layout.

Where this fits in your shift

The patient form is the structure under adding a patient. It’s also the format your shift report will follow. Capturing it once here saves recapturing it later. For the speech-to-fields path, see dictation. For specialty-driven field sets, see templates.