Home Forums Discussions Problems saving sent message

hello,

I recently updated to version 4 and for the most part I'm very happy.
I am having some difficulty trying to find a way to save a message to the patient's chart prior to sending it to my nurse. In previous versions I was able to save the message then send. However, now when the message is saved it disappears. Does anyone know of a good way to save the message that you're sending to someone else? The only solution I have found is to include in the message a note to my nurse to save the message to the chart prior to deleting. Any help would be appreciated.

Thats an interesting point. The fact that the message remained after sending was actually a bug that was fixed, but I see that this had unintended consequences for users like you who 1. wrote a message, 2. sent the message to the nurse, and then 3. saved it to the chart.

The way it was designed was to allow documentation that the nurse handled the message. In this approach, you would 1. write a message, 2. send the message to the nurse, 3. the nurse would reply back to you, noting that she/he had completed the task, 4. you would then save it to the chart. In this way the full documentation path would include that the nurse told you they had done what you ordered. That work?

soloFP and Jon,

This is different than my experience. Also, my experience has been the same in both versions. Here are my findings:

1. Make a new message, e.g. highlight a name from the Patient List and attach it to the message writer. You can then save this to the chart, and the message will still be there so you can send it to some else. I agree with Jon, this seems like a bug but a helpful one.
2. If a message is highlighted in your Inbox and, therefore, viewed as a message, you can save that to the chart. You will be given two options: 1. Save it and delete it from your Inbox, 2. Save it and leave it in your Inbox. If you do the latter, you could then send it back to the sender or forward it to another.
3. You can also highlight a message in your Inbox, click on reply, add a message such as "Noted." You will then have the same options: Save it and delete from Inbox or save it and send it to another user.
4. The way I and I think most users do it is to send either a new message or reply to a message in your Inbox without first saving it. The MA, (as an example), then acts upon the message and based on the message, either saves it or sends it back to the provider who can then either send it or save it. The process can go on indefinitely.
5. One can highlight a message in his or her Inbox, then reply or forward it, and choose the option to send but NOT delete the message. You then still have the message in your Inbox which you can then do with what you wish. I find this very helpful in the following example. You have a patient with a lab value in your Inbox. You want your MA to call the patient with it, but you still need to research it or act on it in some way. This keeps it in your Inbox. Of course, if you want your message that you wrote to the nurse to remain in the message, you would have to copy it to yourself.
6. Finally, one can also attach a patient from the Patient List and write a message and send it to someone. In this case, it is gone. If you wanted that message to be in your Inbox, you would need to Cc it to yourself.

As you can see, there are multiple ways to use the messaging system, of which I only utilize maybe two. I think you have to work with your users enough that everyone knows when to save a note and when to reply or forward it. I know that my MAs will sometimes send me a note such as "Called patient and told them to go to the ED immediately," but will copy it to themselves and then save it, so they have proof that they did it in case I accidentally delete it.

Sorry so confusing.

While we are on the topic of saving things, I still would really love to be able to save a note and forward it without signing it yet. Upon trying to close a note, one would have the following options: Save & Forward or Sign.
I would like to be able to send a saved note to the front where staff could add the dates and times, etc of scheduled tests. When finished they woudl then send the note back to me for final sign-off.

Leslie

Well, I doubt anyone would want to save my last post. Geez, that was confusing, lol.

Thanks. We've started doing things this way, and it is working well. This is really how I intended to handle messaging when we first started using AC a couple of years ago, but I guess I did not communicate this to my staff very well. Anyway, everything is good now.

When using the message system, under 'outbox' some msgs are in white and others in yellow. I assume this indicates some sort of read or unread status; is this correct? Does yellow mean that the person receiving the msg has not yet opened it?

Thanks,

You can easily save the note without signing it by forwarding it to your staff or yourself. I prefer to forward the note to myself and then forward the note to your staff / nurse because I can then make comments regarding what I want them to do in the message box, such as "update meds" etc. and keep a copy of the note in your inbox just in case your MA/nurse forgets...

As for the message color, it is just a way to label the message so it stands out from routine message. You can choose the color in a palete that is located in the left lower corner of the message window.