Yes, but only if the goal is typing less, not typing faster. A faster typist still types the same words; you want a workflow where fewer words need typing in the first place.
There are exactly two kinds of repetition on every OPD consultation.
The first kind is structural. The list of sections (Chief Complaints, HPI, Past History, Exam, Diagnosis, Plan) is the same on every patient. You type those section names, the section headings render. Every consult starts from the same template.
The second kind is prescription repetition. The drugs you prescribe are the same across patients: the same brands, the same doses, the same frequencies, the same durations, the same advice text. You wrote "Tab Augmentin 625 mg BD × 5 days" yesterday; you'll write it again tomorrow, with maybe one or two word changes.
A consultation template kills the first kind of repetition. A personal prescription library kills the second. Neither requires a faster typist; both require setting up the library once, then letting it surface your own past writes when you need them.
Why this is hard
The default workflow (open a blank consult, type the section headings, type every drug from memory) feels productive because you're moving fast, but most of what you're typing you've typed before. The repetition is invisible because each instance feels like a one-off.
Off-the-shelf EMRs that promise "templates" usually give you a paragraph-of-text template: a long block of prose you can paste into a section. The block is the same for every patient. You still type the parts that are different (the patient-specific bits), but you also end up editing the paste to remove the wrong-patient parts. The net time saved is small, and the cognitive load of "is this paste right for this patient?" is real.
The other class of shortcut (EMRs that promise "prescription autocomplete") usually autocomplete from a generic drug dictionary: 50,000 or 100,000 drugs the vendor keeps in a central table. The top suggestion for any letter you type is whatever is most common in that central table, not what you prescribe most often. If you write "T Augmentin 625 BD" for most of your upper-respiratory patients, a generic dictionary puts the brand at the top of the list because it's common. But it puts the generic amoxicillin + clavulanate combo at the top of the same list because that's what the textbook says, and you spend your day tabbing past the textbook option to get back to your brand.
What you actually need is a per-doctor prescription library that ranks by what you have prescribed, not what's most common in a textbook. And a per-doctor template that lists your sections, not a vendor's idea of the standard OPD note.
What good looks like
Nine things to test against. The list runs longer than most vendor checklists because the failure modes are sharper than the marketing suggests.
One template per consult kind. A consultation template and a discharge summary are different documents; they should be different templates, not the same template with optional sections.
Templates are clones, not copies. You can clone the default template under a new name, edit the clone, and keep the original as a fallback. If the tool only lets you "edit the template," a bad edit kills your default.
Sections can be reordered. Up / down arrows on each section, with the order persisted. The doctor who writes Plan before Diagnosis should be able to.
Sections can be added and removed, not just shown or hidden. Actually added or deleted from the template. A section you never use shouldn't render on every patient.
The prescription library is grouped by brand. When you search, you see one row per brand, with the formats you've used for that brand nested inside. Searching by chemical name should also work.
Sort by "most prescribed" or "most recent." Both are useful; the doctor chooses per session. Default is usually "most recent" because that's what you want when a patient returns next week.
Suggestions should rank your own library above any generic dictionary. When you start typing on a prescription row, the autocomplete shows your brand + dose + frequency first; the generic dictionary is the fallback. Not the other way around.
Inline edit on any saved format. You're going to want to fix a typo in a prescription you wrote six months ago. The tool should let you edit it in place.
The library grows from your real prescriptions. Every prescription you save is added to the library without a separate "save to library" step. If you have to remember to save, you won't.
If a tool passes all nine, you can write faster without typing faster.
How to actually set it up
The setup is mostly one-time, then a week of letting the library learn.
- Open the Templates screen once. Clone the default template under a new name (so the original stays as a fallback). Strip out the sections you don't use. Reorder the rest into the order you actually write in.
- Open the prescription library screen once. Look at what's already there. If you've been prescribing for a while, your past prescriptions are already in the library, sorted by most-recent. Adjust the sort to "most prescribed" and check that your top 20 brands are where you expect.
- Pick the new template as the default for new consults. From the dashboard, the "New Consultation" button should now open your customised template.
- Use it for a week. Notice when the prescription autocomplete starts surfacing your own past formats at the top of the suggestion list. The first few days are slower (no library to rank from); by the second week, the system has seen enough of your prescribing to be useful.
- Edit the template when you notice a missing section. Templates are not set-and-forget. As your practice changes, the template changes with it. A new section you find yourself writing on every patient should be added to the template, not typed manually 30 times.
The browser-side path (which is what DrPenDown's Templates and My Rx pages implement) is one way to do the five steps: TemplatesPage supports clone, reorder, add/remove sections; RxPage groups by brand, sorts by either most-recent or most-prescribed, and surfaces your library above the 50k-term generic dictionary. The workflow above works in any tool that meets the nine criteria.
Common follow-up questions
What if two patients need very different consult structures? Build two templates. A template is a per-consult choice; you pick which one to open before you start typing. Most OPD doctors need one or two templates, not five. The variation between patients is in the content of each section, not in the structure of the consult.
How long before the prescription library starts being useful? A week or two of daily prescribing is enough for the library to know your top 20 brands and dose combinations. The autocomplete starts surfacing your formats within that window. The library gets noticeably better over the first three months; after that, the marginal improvement per week is small.
Does the library sync between desktop and mobile? It should. If you prescribe on your OPD desktop on Monday and consult on your phone on Wednesday, the prescription library should be the same. Anything less means the second device feels new for weeks, which defeats the point.
What about new drugs I haven't prescribed before? The library still helps. When you start typing a brand you've never used, the autocomplete falls back to the generic dictionary and shows the most common brand for that chemical. You accept, prescribe, and the format enters your library. Next time, it's at the top of your suggestion list, not the generic dictionary's.
What if a colleague shares a template with me? A well-designed tool lets you import a template from another doctor, then customise it under your own name. The clone model is essential here: you never want to edit a shared template directly, because your edits would propagate to the original owner.
Related reading
- How do doctors remember every drug they prescribe?: the prescription-memory problem and the per-doctor library solution.
- Is there an OPD EMR that suggests the prescription I actually want?: the suggestion-ranking question and what "ranked by what you prescribe" actually means.
- What does an Indian OPD actually need from an EMR in 2026?: the buyer-checklist flagship. Templates and My Rx are two of the seven criteria.
- Glossary: My Rx, the named term for the per-doctor prescription library.
- Glossary: Consultation Template, the named term for the per-consult section list.
- FAQ: all questions about prescribing at the OPD, every follow-up question across the prescribing cluster in one place.