Home Forums Discussions Feedback and Recommendations At a glance

What I'd like to see

Perhaps an "At a glance" feature allowing one to see a brief summary of a patient's last three visits as you are looking at their Present Encounter screen.

As it is now you have to hit F8 (or select Past Encounter tab), select an encounter, select All or perhaps Assessment and Plan. Selecting "All" you have to wade through lots of verbiage. Assessment & Plan doesn't normally contain the snippet of clinical data, it's in the HOPI (eg headaches now monthly, urticaria returned two weeks ago etc) Bringing up past visits individually in Toto would be a real pain. Lots of staring at the computer screen instead of the patient. (If I'm an idiot and have missed an easier way to glean past clinical let me know)

My suggestion would be to have an optional pane alongside the Most Recent Encounter window with brief one page summaries (HOPI, Assessment & Plan)of the last several visits stacked in it. A mouse click, or better yet just a pointer "hover", would quickly magnify and reduce each summary.

As a specialist I tend to see many patients with a chronic problem. They don't develop new diagnoses very often. A virtue of paper charting was I could input, well actually scrawl a bit, the basics and upon their return visits it took only a few moments to glance at a page or two in the chart. It quickly gives you a feel of the clinical flow for that particular patient and their problem.

Even the assessment and plan trick takes me a lot further than I was. Thanks for pointing that out. You wish would be even better.

Hey just passing by, but have either of you looked at clicking on the date of the encounter (in the upper left of the present encounter) and clicking your down error to cycle through older notes? You should be able to go back to where you were working before. Try it, it might be helpful.

Ben

Aha, that is an easier way. Click on Use Prior Visit then
click on date above it. Using a mouse scroll wheel it flips
all data through various fields (CC HOPI Plan etc). By keeping
your eye on say the HPI box you can quickly get an impression
of past patient performance, so to speak.

Thanks

These are great ideas. I have been asking for a way to see the assessment and plan for six years. It would be nice to at least be able to click through like you do a PDF document. Scrolling is hard to control.

Once again, though, EMRs should mirror paper charts. In paper charts, the first page was a (I forget what you call it) flow sheet or whatever with problem list, etc. It would be great to open the EMR to that page which would have the last one or two A/Ps. At least I always feel good when I diagnose a heart murmur then look in the chart and see in small font, Pulmonic stenosis.