How to Influence Instant Text's Continuation Suggestions

A customer recently asked:

I'm currently working on a small project for a doctor and he wanted a list of his most common diagnoses and their ICD‑10 codes.

I thought it would be nice if when I expand vh into ventral hernia I would then get the option of a continuation of (K43).

If I can create a glossary with files that have the ICD‑10 codes, this project will take less time.

In this post I will show you how you can create a single entry containing a list of diseases and their corresponding ICD‑10 code.

This will be a special entry that you will likely never expand. Otherwise, it is a normal entry with a short, an expansion and an optional display form.

Its sole purpose is to trigger continuations.

Every time you will type a disease or expand a short into a disease that is mentioned in that entry, Instant Text will propose its ICD‑10 code as a continuation.

The best way to illustrate this technique is through a small example.

I have created a very small glossary called Hernia.xglo (click the link to download) with the ICD‑10 codes for hernias.

As you can see in the Glossary Viewer screenshot below, the first entry is the one that will be used to trigger the continuations with the ICD‑10 codes:

• Its short is not particularly relevant as it is not meant for typical expansion.
  (We chose --icd-codes which is rather exotic and has the advantage that it will not conflict with shorts of diseases).
• Its expansion contains the list of the diseases and their corresponding ICD‑10 codes.
• Its display form has been set to ICD CODES LIST

Now when I expand vh into ventral hernia, Instant Text will automatically suggest (K43) as a continuation, as it matches a disease in the ICD CODES LIST entry.

Make sure to set your minimum continuation length to 4 characters or less in the Expansion Options. Otherwise, the (K43) continuation will be considered too short and won't be displayed.