Chock -

I also come from a SOAPware background, and I share your same frustrations: (we are *both* not crazy) It seems almost odd that, while working on one chart, if one needs to open a different chart, that the first chart needs to become permanently unalterable to view the second (almost the equivalent of being in high school and having homework assignment in your loosleaf binder rendered unalteralble if you dare close the binder before the assignment is finished) - Yes, one can in theory forward the chart (with the inherent risk of losing its contents) but I agree that solution is an ackward compensatory measure for a major oversight in the software.

I have recommended to AC (Via their recommend improvements) four Major suggestons :

1. Eliminate Default Erasing - chart contents should never, ever, ever erase except under the most extreme circumstances.

2. Allow chart closure WITHOUT locking the chart. Allow chart sign/locking to be ELECTIVE by the provider when the provider feels the note is comlete

3. Allow multiple providers/staff members (with sufficient security clearance) to open charts without having to forward them back and forth to each other (why give an EMR the disadvantages of a paper chart by being only in one place at one time)

4. Improve the letter-writer so custom letters can be generated from the chart fields, and proofread and altered even AFTER the patient encounter has completed.

The suggestion of acquiring multliple computers to view more than one unlocked chart is a testament to the need for further tweakning of this program. Keep making suggestions

Bruce Morgenstern, MD (Neurology)
Denver CO