What software is your school using for logging patient procedures/encounters? ... Are there any other programs out there? Apps? ...
This is an interesting post and the best answer kind of depends on how you want to use the information. As a student, who would you show (outside of the course requirements)? If you were applying for an employment interview would you use your medical student patient logs? Are you presenting the information in hardcopy, online, or both?
New Innovations is what a lot of residency programs use. Residencies that operate out of a single health system have it easier and can automatically log patients based upon billing/coding interactions. For students, they're mostly going from hospital to hospital and clinic to clinic, so it's all on your own.
My school created their own program, but you essentially entered in the number of diagnoses you saw (e.g., I saw ICD-9 401.9 essential HTN 40 times during XYZ months) as opposed to each individual clinical encounter and the various diagnoses for that encounter. It's a bad system in my opinion and not a realistic way of keeping track of your experiences. Plus nobody used it. There was a standard patient log form that most students hand-wrote into, but then again a lot of students just slacked off and made up enough encounters to fill in the required blanks.
There are apps out there on the market but I didn't look into them. I didn't want to have to run into paying for getting the data back, losing data, other bugs, etc. Let us know if you find anything because I would be interested.
Alternatively you could create a calendar event in your phone for each patient encounter you had (automatically notes the date), then download the data of past events specific to that calendar when you're ready to transfer the information.
What I did was keep the same basic excel sheet and diligently keep track of my day on a piece of folded computer paper. The most important encounters are procedures performed (sutures, Pap smear, etc. - even the little stuff) - you want to make a special area on whatever you create for this so it can be highlighted. Billing and coding are really outside the realm of students, but it would be nice to show initiative in coding ICD-9/10 and DSM-IV-TR/V at least. Always note the date, rotation, physician, MRN or DOB (be consistent), diagnoses, procedures, and a section where you're either performing the encounter or observing.