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Has anyone used the web-based form builder called Clinical Forge? Here is their website:
The tool looks very promising and certainly is easier to work with than VFE as far as laying out forms. I'm especially interested in hearing from seasoned VFE users. Are there things that can be accomplished with VFE that Clinical Forge can't accommodate?
Posted : June 23, 2016 6:35 am
This is very interesting. I think I will give the 30 day trial a try and see what I think. Thanks for posting this.
Posted : June 23, 2016 6:56 am
Topic starter
Would love to hear your feedback. I signed up for the 30 day trial as well.
Posted : June 23, 2016 7:03 am
I know the guy who created this and seen the demo first hand. ClinicalForge is the real deal and much easier to create form content then VFE.
Posted : June 23, 2016 7:19 am
I think I'm going to sign up for the trial when I have some time too. It looks promising.
Posted : June 23, 2016 9:07 am
Topic starter
Here is my initial impression of this tool so far: AWESOME
I have used the tool to start building a fairly complicated form and Clinical Forge has yet to crash (knock on wood). It is way more intuitive to use than VFE and keeps your MEL code better organized and structured. It is also much easier to edit MEL in this tool. I had a teleconference with the developer this morning and he was super helpful and is very open to getting feedback on improving his application. The quality of this software is incredible for the first release of the product. I will provide some more feedback as I get further along with the form, but at this point I would give the product two thumbs up!
Posted : June 24, 2016 6:28 am
We've been using it and so far really like it. My form editors will second VitrualHITMan that its AWESOME.
Posted : June 26, 2016 10:24 am
Topic starter
One thing to note when using Clinical Forge (CF); the concept of sections was removed. If you are like me, you probably used sections to create logical groupings of data collection controls on a form. Here is what you can do to accomplish the same thing without a section control in CF.
Drop a text field onto your form and give it a background color of your choosing (by the way, you aren't limited to a 16 color palette with this tool which is really sweet).
No need to have a text label on the control but you can add one if you want that to emulate the section title feature that you have in VFE.
Select the option called ‘Backdrop’ at the bottom of the options panel for the text field. This allows you to drop other controls on top of the text field and they will appear in front of your backdrop text field when viewing the form in Centricity.
The developer added this feature over this past weekend after I pointed out the need to have a way to organize controls in logical groupings. I'm impressed with how quickly he responded. I'm loving this tool.
Posted : June 27, 2016 3:27 am
My only concern is since this is on the cloud. Once this guy decide to go puff.
everything will go with him.
Not the same way as VFE, even if the company close tomorrow; you still have the Installation file and your key to reinstall as many times as you need and be able to continue creating form until your OS no longer support the application.
Posted : June 27, 2016 9:37 am
Topic starter
True, but you would at least have access to the clinical kits and could possibly import them into VFE. Not sure how well they would translate. I suspect it wouldn't be pretty. This isn't a huge concern for me because I keep pretty good documentation of the code and functions behind the forms I develop. Worst case, I would just have to rebuild the form in VFE. It would be a pain, but still doable. Hopefully there will be a visual HTML form builder by the time this tool is obsolete. 🙂
Posted : June 27, 2016 9:51 am
Haven't updated my VFE in a while, can you actually import Clinical Kit now.?
as far as i was concerned you could import some VFE, Dgl, and FE format, but not the actual Clinical Kit.
Posted : June 27, 2016 9:55 am
Topic starter
You can import clinical kits into VFE now by opening a file and selecting type ".ckt"
You get a warning that the import file feature is only for advanced users and I've had various levels of success. Basic forms import pretty well, but forms that have a lot of customization can have issues. In other words, mileage varies based on the complexity of the form.
Posted : June 27, 2016 11:13 am
I'll jump in on the trial and report back my thoughts.
Posted : June 28, 2016 2:44 am
Unless I'm overlooking them (which is highly likely), or the trial is not a full-access trial (which would be foolish and useless), I don't see the below functions that I would consider critical to any form development software:
- Conditional Visibility Options/Regions
- Obs Term Connection & Lookup (not even the basic Obs Term Library from GE's website)
- Basic Function Libraries
Posted : June 28, 2016 3:01 am
Topic starter
Sam,
the visibility regions are replaced with a concept called "toggle groups" in clinical forge. Took me a while to figure it out but trust me, it is far better than working with visibility regions in VFE. I'm building a fairly complex form and have yet to come across a challenge that CF hasn't been able to handle. I devoted about two hours of time rebuilding a form I built with VFE to do my own comparison. It's funny because I ran into some of the same issues you have encountered. What I highly recommend is shooting the developer a message or request support from their website and say you would like to do a webex. The developer is happy to walk you through a demo and answer specific questions about functionality that appears to be missing. During my webex, he let me take control of the presentation so I could show him my form and the specific things I was struggling with accomplishing in his product. I was amazed at the features he showed me (particularly on the text translation side) and the attention to detail he devoted to the development of this tool. The developer is a seasoned VFE user as well and ended up developing the product because of the limitations he routinely encountered in the VFE environment. His product even has built in version control. Any VFE user knows what a pain that can be when you have to do it all manually. I think it's great you are evaluating it! Do yourself a favor and schedule a webex. The natural evolution of this product seems obvious to me given GE's recent Northstar announcement.
Posted : June 28, 2016 7:31 am
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