We wish that all orders were saved somewhere in the chart in a format that could be reprinted if the patient loses the order as so often happens (or, faxed to the lab or imaging office). Preferably it would be saved to Imported Items (without sign-off requirement). Then, when the results came in, they would be imported and the order deleted. If the search function in AC would include the Imported Items "Item Subject", we could use it to identify any orders that had not been deleted. I have submitted this search capability as a suggestion in the past: we would like to be able to do a search of Imported Items, for just one example, for 'diabetic eye exam' for all patients with a diabetes diagnosis to see who needs to be reminded/encouraged to get their exam done.
I have been trying to figure out a way to template lab and imaging orders into the letter writer, since once printed all letters are automatically saved to Imported Items. Still have work to do on that, though. In general, this Order function could use some improvement as has been suggested by others here.
