The Notes workspace

What you’ll do

Swipe through your notes the same way you swipe through patients and tasks. Tap to view, double-tap to edit, double-tap the chip to add a new one. Notes is the simplest of the three workspaces. There’s no filter menu, no routine bundles, just notes.

Why nurses use this

The third drawer of your work brain. Four categories of stuff end up here:

• Handoff bullets: what you’ll read off at end-of-shift report (“Bed 3 family wants the chaplain at 1900”, “restart heparin gtt after AM labs”).
• Self-reminders: the not-quite-tasks (“clarify the heparin order with Dr. K”, “follow up on the missing CT”).
• Patient-attached observations: things that aren’t structured fields but matter (“daughter staying overnight”, “mentioned a contrast reaction last admission”).
• Operational reference: the stuff every nurse memorizes for the unit: med room door code, charge nurse extension, pager numbers for pharmacy / RT / lab, your hospital’s rapid response criteria, the overhead-code definitions. None of it is patient-specific; all of it is shift-critical.

Without a Notes workspace this stuff ends up crammed into task descriptions, scribbled on a paper towel in your scrub pocket, or buried in your personal Notes app where patient context shouldn’t live. The Notes workspace puts the per-shift stuff next to the patients and tasks it’s about, and keeps the reference stuff persistent in the same place.

How to get there

Notes is the rightmost chip on the dashboard.

• From the dashboard: single tap the Notes chip.
• Add a note fast: double-tap the Notes chip.
• Direct deep link: app.nursebrain.com/view-note?id=<note-id> opens a specific note (useful for share links).

Step-by-step

1. Switch to Notes. Single tap the Notes chip. The deck below swaps to notes.

2. Swipe through. Same deck gesture as patients and tasks. Left/right to rotate.

3. Tap to view. Tap a note card to open the read view (/view-note). Pull down to dismiss.

4. Double-tap to edit. Opens the edit view (/edit-note). Edit, save, done.

5. Add a note. Double-tap the Notes chip. Form opens immediately. Or tap the active chip → menu → “Add note.” Same thing.

6. Attach to a patient (optional). When you create a note, you can scope it to a specific patient. Patient-scoped notes show up on the patient sheet’s timeline and travel with the patient if you QR-hand them off.

Tips from the floor

• Use notes for the shift report you’re going to give at 1900. Write each line of report as a separate note as the shift goes. By end-of-shift the deck is your handoff.
• Make a “reference” note on day one of a new unit. Door codes, charge nurse extension, pharmacy/RT/lab pagers, rapid response criteria, the overhead-code list. None of it gets a shift tag, so it lives in your deck for as long as you work there. New grads and floats benefit most; veterans use it for the codes they keep forgetting (Code Gray? Code Silver? Code Pink?).
• Notes scoped to a patient travel with the patient. If you generate a QR for that patient, the receiving nurse gets your notes attached. Useful, but think before you share. Write notes you’d want another nurse to read.
• Notes are not the chart. They’re nurse-to-nurse, not nurse-to-record. Don’t put PHI in a way that crosses your org’s policy line; don’t use Synapse notes to substitute for the EHR.
• Long-press a note card and something different happens. Like the other two decks. Worth finding.
• Notes you add outside a shift still live in the deck. Notes don’t have a shift tag the way tasks do. They’re persistent until you delete them. That’s what makes reference notes work.

Common questions

Can I share a note with someone outside Synapse? The view route (/view-note) is deep-linkable, but the recipient still needs Synapse to see it. If you want a portable copy, export from the brain sheet builder or paste into your hospital’s secure messaging.

Do notes attached to a patient get cleared at end-of-shift? The patient moves to Previous; notes attached to that patient stay attached. If you re-add the patient (paid feature), the notes come back with them.

Can the Brain assistant make notes for me? Yes. Ask the Brain to summarize a patient or write a shift handoff for you. It can draft notes you then edit or save. See the Brain assistant.

What about dictating notes? Tap the mic inside a note’s edit view and dictate the body. Same dictation engine as patient intake. See dictation.

Is there a notes search? Yes. Search is in the Notes view above the deck. Useful at the end of a long stretch.

Can I pin a note to the top of the deck? Not currently. The order is recency-first. If pinning matters to you, tell us.

Are notes only for patient stuff? No. Operational reference notes (door codes, pager numbers, code definitions, charge extension, unit phone tree) live in the same deck. They don’t need a patient and they don’t expire at end-of-shift. Title them clearly (“Med room door code”, “Pharmacy after-hours”) so you can find them fast.

Where this fits in your shift

Notes is the third workspace and the simplest one. It’s where the things-to-remember live next to the patients and tasks they’re about. The full grammar (chip, deck, gestures) is in the three swipes. For end-of-shift handoff specifically, see ending your shift.