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Form Builder Elements

How do clinicians use Form Builder Elements to construct interactive documents?

Building a legally protective, patient-friendly consent document requires more than simple text editing. The platform provides a rich Elements Tab containing a suite of interactive, specialized blocks designed to ensure patient comprehension and institutional compliance. By combining custom branding with structured data elements, clinical coordinators can eliminate paper-based workflows entirely.

How do you configure Institutional Branding?

Every consent document begins with a professional, hospital-branded header. By clicking the Branding Header at the very top of the editor canvas, clinical coordinators can customize:

  • Institutional Identity: Upload a high-resolution hospital or research center logo, define the official organization name, and specify the clinical department (e.g., Department of Pediatric Oncology).
  • Contact Channels: Embed official contact coordinates including physical address, telephone number, patient relations email, and web URL.
  • Accent Thematic Styling: Set a custom accent color used for thematic divider borders and visual highlights throughout the active document, maintaining a premium brand identity.

How is the Elements Tab organized?

The Elements Tab (accessible inside the right-hand control center) acts as an interactive catalog of layout components. Coordinators can search, configure, and inject blocks into any position on the canvas. These blocks are categorized into standard medical narratives, legal compliance clauses, data tables, and structured signature layouts.

What types of narrative, visual, and knowledge blocks are supported?

To ensure patients fully understand procedural disclosures, clinicians can deploy several formats of explanatory and visual components:

  • Medical Narrative Block: Standard clinical text blocks dedicated to procedure explanations, alternative treatment discussions, and anesthesia disclosures. Supports rich text formatting.
  • Visual Aid Block: Allows embedding medical diagrams or anatomical illustrations. Coordinators can upload standard image files (PNG, JPG, SVG) directly into the secure cloud or reference verified secure HTTPS URLs. The system automatically validates that the image asset loads properly before permitting injection, preventing broken links.
  • Bullet List Block: A structured layout to easily list procedural steps, post-operative warnings, or recovery milestones for optimal legibility.
  • Notice Box: Styled callouts to highlight vital clinical warnings or instructions. Coordinators can select color-coded alert severities such as standard information boxes, moderate warnings, or critical emergency instructions.
  • Knowledge Box: A comprehensive, rich procedural info card. It allows you to group an introductory clinical context summary, an embedded visual illustration or diagram, and supplemental clinical notes or risk matrices underneath the image in a single unified container. This is highly recommended for complex, high-risk surgical or radiological procedures to enhance comprehension.
  • Table Block: A clinical data table supporting up to 2 columns and 50 rows. Renders a structured comparison grid (e.g., alternative treatment comparisons, surgical fees, study visits). It features inline rich text editing with dynamic Cell Formatting: Bold, Italic, bullet lists, and interactive checkboxes inside individual cells to allow clinicians to compile checkable clinical matrices.

Fulfilling national and state-specific disclosure requirements is made simple with specialized compliance blocks:

  • Legal Clause Block: Clinicians can access a built-in library of legally vetted compliance clauses (e.g., state-specific HIPAA disclosures, secondary research policies). The system automatically filters and suggests appropriate clauses based on the target jurisdiction you mapped during the Intake Wizard.
  • Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) Block: A structured question-and-answer widget. Coordinators can enter common patient questions and provide plain-language answers, encouraging patient self-service review.
  • Glossary Block: Allows defining complex clinical terms. When patients read the form, they can hover over or reference the glossary to see plain-language definitions, improving comprehension.
  • Page Break: A structural element that forces a clean page divider in finalized PDF exports, ensuring professional printing formatting.

How do you collect structured patient data and risk acknowledgements?

To record active patient input, clinicians can insert clinical data grids and affirmation checkboxes directly into the layout:

  • Info Grid: A pre-formatted layout used to collect and display structured visit metadata. Coordinators can choose from popular medical presets like Patient Full Name, Date of Birth, Attending Physician, Facility Name, and Capacity Assessment Scores.
  • Initials Block: A specialized, mandatory check-box inserted next to high-risk procedural statements or regulated risk disclosures. It requires the patient or subject to explicitly tap/check their initials for each itemized statement individually, ensuring active consent on crucial risk clauses rather than bulk-signing the page.
  • Checkbox/Election Box: Enforces affirmative statements, legal elections, or optional research opt-ins (such as consenting to clinical photography or tissue retention).
  • Contacts Block: Pre-structures crucial contact cards for primary clinical roles: Principal Investigator (PI), IRB / Ethics Committee, and 24-Hour Emergency Contact. It features an automated Forensic Placeholder Detector that monitors the inputs and displays visual warning badges (e.g., highlight borders and alert indicators) if brackets or default placeholder terms (e.g., [Insert Name]) are left in the draft, preventing compliance slips.
  • Declaration Block: Role-specific formal statements tailored for subjects, guardians, or interpreters.

How do structured certification and signature panels function?

Final legal sealing of the document requires structured attestation and execution panels:

  • Attestation Box: Formatted checkable statements specifically for clinical providers, principal investigators, or impartial witnesses. They allow the clinical team or third-party witness to attest that the standard consent protocol was properly conducted, that the patient displayed decision-making capacity, and that all questions were answered.
  • Signature Panel: The execution panel that maps dynamic signature locations for all required participants (e.g., Subject, Guardian, Impartial Witness, Interpreter, or Principal Investigator). These slots are dynamically configured based on your wizard settings. In Research Mode, individual names are omitted and replaced with secure, pre-allocated placeholders mapped to the trial’s Enrollment Manifest, unlocking only after the subject completes their signing phase.

What are the specialized clinical research blocks?

For clinical trials and biological biobanking, the platform provides two composite, pre-configured elements designed to satisfy strict international standards:

How does the Clinical Trials Registry Integration work?

When running registry-tracked investigations, coordinators can insert the Clinical Trials Registry (NCT Registry) block:

  • Registry Search: Clinicians simply enter the study’s official NCT ID (e.g., NCT00000419).
  • Automated Registry Fetch: The system queries the registry database to pull official study metadata, instantly populating an Info Grid with the Official Study Title, Principal Investigator, Study Sponsor, Protocol ID, and NCT ID. This eliminates manual typing errors and aligns the consent document with official clinical trial registrations.

How does the Biospecimen & Genetic Research Bundle operate?

For studies collecting human biological materials, coordinators can inject the pre-built Biospecimen Bundle—a compound component that embeds:

  • Patient Disclosure: Text detailing the long-term storage, genetic sequencing, commercial sharing, and voluntary nature of biological sample donation.
  • Research Elections: Pre-configured checkboxes enabling patients to separate their trial consent from optional secondary biobanking opt-ins.
  • Withdrawal Clarifications: Details explaining the patient’s right to request sample destruction at a later date.
  • Dedicated Specimen Signature: An independent signature slot dedicated exclusively to genetic and specimen authorization.