Welcome to the NEW CHUG— your ultimate destination for cutting-edge insights and discussions at the intersection of healthcare and technology.

Our platform is dedicated to exploring the dynamic landscape of healthcare technology, empowering professionals, enthusiasts, and innovators alike with the knowledge and resources to navigate the rapidly evolving field.

From telemedicine revolutionizing patient care to the transformative potential of artificial intelligence in diagnostics, we delve into a myriad of topics shaping the future of healthcare delivery. Whether you’re a seasoned healthcare IT professional, an aspiring entrepreneur in the digital health space, or simply curious about the latest innovations, our curated content, expert interviews, and thought-provoking articles provide a comprehensive exploration of healthcare technology’s most pressing issues.

Join us as we navigate the forefront of innovation, driving forward the transformation of healthcare for a healthier, more connected world.

Have questions or suggestions? Please use the contact button below.

Notifications

Clear all

Possible to display care alerts in VFE form?

CPS, C-EMR, PM

Last Post by Anonymous 1 second ago

10 Posts

7 Users

0 Reactions

81 Views

RSS

emaher

(@emaher)

Posts: 71

Estimable Member

Topic starter

We've been kicking around some ideas for improving our quality measure numbers. For some of the measures we want to use care alerts. Ideally, we'd want to display these within a form rather than have the user leave the encounter to view them.

Is it possible to display care alerts in within a form?

Posted : May 9, 2017 5:25 am

gibsonmi

(@gibsonmi)

Posts: 827

Prominent Member

Yes, you have to dig into mldefs though, this one is in mldefs5.txt, the object you want is _ChartFlags. I know we use it somewhere but I can't remember where so I can't find an easy example to share...

Posted : May 9, 2017 5:49 am

virtualHITman

(@virtualhitman)

Posts: 319

Reputable Member

It depends on what "rules" you want to use for firing the "care alerts" and whether the data is accessible from a MEL function. You can certainly do this if the data you want to evaluate is stored in OBS terms. For example, if you want to dynamically display an alert when it has been more than 6 months since a diabetic patient had their A1c checked, you can do that. You will need to write a custom MEL function for each alert and then associate that to some kind of trigger. You could have the function run each time the form component is opened or have it triggered when a button is pushed. We have developed a Clinical Decision Support form that displays several care alerts on one form. The functions run when a user click on a button. This allows all of the care alerts to be reviewed from one screen/form in the encounter. If you provided some examples of what you are trying to accomplish, I could possibly provide an example or two.

Posted : May 9, 2017 5:52 am

jfitzmd

(@jfitzmd)

Posts: 419

Reputable Member

I have developed a form to summarize the status of each quality measure. This is included in the visit encounter form. If you would like to see my approach, contact me.

Posted : May 9, 2017 5:56 am

emaher

(@emaher)

Posts: 71

Estimable Member

Topic starter

Example: Pneumonia Vaccine measure

My thought was to use the inquiry function to identify patients that meet the measure denominator and then create care alerts for those patients.

Being able to display the care alerts within an encounter would save the physician clicks.

Posted : May 9, 2017 6:46 am

virtualHITman

(@virtualhitman)

Posts: 319

Reputable Member

To display a tickler/"care alert" to the provider in this example, I would do the following: For the sake of space, I'm just specifying the coding logic using pseudocode instead of actual MEL language.

Check to see if the patient is 65 years or older

If patient is younger than 65, then

drop out of function, no reason to fire alert

Else,

Check to see if patient has had pneumonia vaccine by parsing through results returned from the IMMUN_GETLIST() function

If patient has had pneumonia vaccine administered or recorded, then

drop out of function, no reason to fire alert (unless you want to differentiate from vaccines you administered vs. those reported by the patient; in the latter instance, you could display a "soft alert" or warning that indicates the patient has reported they have had the vaccine

Else,

fire alert indicating that patient has no record of a pneumonia vaccine

Endif

There are several options for displaying the "care alert". You could have a popup (i.e. userok() function), although I wouldn't recommend it because it would force the provider to have to respond with a click every time the alert was triggered. A better option would be to have a hidden text control that gets displayed (in red or yellow) when that control contained text. The function above could set the content of the text control based on the alert that you wanted to display. For configuration management purposes, I would recommend writing these alert functions into a library. This would be far easier to maintain than copying and pasting these functions into all of your custom forms.

Posted : May 9, 2017 8:26 am

DavidShower

(@davidshower)

Posts: 1255

Noble Member

I was able to throw together a little proof of concept form. I used the _ChartSummaryFlags object. Here's a screen shot of a test patient with flags, care alerts, and popups.

And here is a screen shot of a sample form with data displays showing content of care alerts and popups.

Here is the code for the functions the data displays are using:{! global gRows = getRowCount('_ChartSummaryFlags')} fn fnShowCarePlan(){ local strAllCarePlans local nRows = 0 while nRows <= gRows do if (getRow('_ChartSummaryFlags',nRows,'Popup')= 0) then strAllCarePlans = strAllCarePlans + HRET + getRow('_ChartSummaryFlags',nRows,'Message') nRows = nRows +1 else nRows = nRows +1 endif endwhile return strAllCarePlans } fn fnShowPopUps(){ local strAllPopUps local nRows = 0 while nRows <= gRows do if (getRow('_ChartSummaryFlags',nRows,'Popup')= 1) then strAllPopUps = strAllPopUps + HRET + getRow('_ChartSummaryFlags',nRows,'Message') nRows = nRows +1 else nRows = nRows +1 endif endwhile return strAllPopUps }

Here's the form.

Show Care Plan Info

Posted : May 10, 2017 12:45 pm

burnsh

(@burnsh)

Posts: 155

Estimable Member

I have a feeling everyone knows this already, but it's pretty easy to see existing flags from within an encounter using the F11 button...but thought I'd throw that out there in case there's anyone reading this that isn't familiar with that keyboard shortcut.

Posted : May 13, 2017 6:08 am

dcarrick

(@dcarrick)

Posts: 3

Active Member

I work for a large IM practice and am considering developing a form for the physicians/MAs at the end of the encounter that shows care gaps (quality measures) that have not been met. I envision a form like the MU form that we used to use that allows the physician to close gaps through navigation buttons on the form. I am interested in any feedback as I have only attended the first VFE class remotely. Any suggestions/recommendations on the best way to assist the physicians? Any guidance would be much appreciated

Thanks

Daphne Carrick

Posted : June 11, 2018 6:25 am

virtualHITman

(@virtualhitman)

Posts: 319

Reputable Member

Here is an example of a form I built in VFE back in the meaningful use days that displays care gaps for diabetic patients. Perhaps this will give you some design ideas.

Cheers,
Greg

Posted : June 11, 2018 7:21 am

24 Forums
9,940 Topics
39.9 K Posts
1 Online
6,470 Members

Forum Icons: Forum contains no unread posts Forum contains unread posts

Topic Icons: Not Replied Replied Active Hot Sticky Unapproved Solved Private Closed