Easy Epic Keyboard Shortcuts

For the inaugural EMR article, I’m kicking off with something small: Epic keyboard shortcuts. These are pretty basic and easy to use, but take some dedicated repetition to shorten your screen time. Most of the shortcuts used in word processing and other software tools work the same for Epic, like Ctrl + C to copy or Ctrl + Z to undo your most recent change. Here are three Epic-specific shortcuts that have saved me a few clicks:

Go to Orders: Ctrl + O
This will populate your manage orders tab.
From here you can add individual orders or access your order sets.

Sign: Alt + S
This is particularly useful if you are in an open note and have finished documenting. Type Alt + S to sign the note.

Accept: Alt + A
A good use case for this is when you are entering orders. Type Alt + A to accept the order.

There are, of course, methods to click around and achieve these exact functions, but I’ve found that I can spend a lot of time clicking between screens and menus on Epic. Efficiency with the platform is all about reducing the number of clicks to get where you want to go. These Epic shortcut keys keep your hands off the mouse, which will save you time.

If you are looking for other shortcuts, take a look at your Epic screen. Many commands have an underlined letter, which indicates that this command can be activated with either Ctrl or Alt + the underlined letter (see image below).