Home Forums Discussions General Discussion ENTERING LAB DATA IN AC

I AM NEW TO AC. HOW DO I ORDER LAB TEST LIKE 25 OH VITAMIN D AND THEN ENTERING THE RESULTS IN AC MANUALLY?
HOW DO I ENTER VITAMINS OR SUPPLEMENTS TO THE AC DATA BASE?
I AM TRANSITIONING FROM SPRING CHARTS... DOES ANY ONE HAVE EXPERIENCE WITH THIS EHR?
THANKS
BENJAMIN G. NEWMAN, MD..(FP)
WINTER HARBOR MAINE

Benjamin,

How do you get the lab results, and which lab do you use? Typically, results either are imported directly from the lab (like Quest), or come in by Fax and are then imported as an electronic file directly, imported from a service like UpDox, or scanned in. You could do a chart addendum if it is an in-office test. There are also more elegant ways to "enter the results manually", like storing a lab form in a shared folder as a template(Word or Excel) and saving it in imported items, but that may be a topic for a little later if you are trying to get your arms around this as a new user. Just bear in mind this is very useful for things like INR flow sheets. If you can arrange to import directly from Quest, then it iseasy to view a series of tests in spreadsheet form. Since the whole point is to do as little work as possible in charting, try to avoid as many manual steps as possible.

Quest will accept a lab slip printed from the orders>laboratory section of Amazing Charts. You create the tests you want either in the "Define orders and order sets" portion of the administrator's section, or by clicking the "Quick add" button in the lab orders section. One hint; you can group the tests you use by entering them with a number preceding the name of the test, like,"4.1, 25-OH Vitamin D level" and grouping all metabolic tests as 4.1, 4.2, 4.25, whatever. Otherwise AC alphebetizes the names of the tests, and you have to scroll to the bottom to get "urinalysis".

As to vitamins and supplements, double click on the "current medications" box, enter the medication name, search for it, and then save the information.

Thanks David, Where I live, Affillated Laboratory is the one most use.I called them and they told me that they are having trouble with AC exporting the reports.They said they would call AC is see if they new upgrade will work.
Where do you view lab work in AC for a given patient and also when doing a procedure on a patient where do you enter that and are there templates for common procedures?
I just started using AC last week having used Spring Charts for 2 yrs and did not like it.
Thanks for your help,

Ben

David,
In terms of adding medication To the data base of AC, I was thinking in terms of odd ball supplements like pycnogenol or Chinese herbs that can not be searched first in the data base.
Any suggestions?
Ben
PS I recently finished a one year program at Harvard on Acupuncture which has opened my aperture on how I treat some patients.

Anything that cam be printed can be scanned in. We use UpDox which makes importing things faxed to us very easy. You can choose the category which shows up in "imported items" in the patient chart. I'm unaware of pre.made procedure templates, but a template for something like an Acupuncture treatment would be easy to make in Word and save as a Word template and store as mentioned above. Likely you already have those and have been using them. I have forgotten the exact process but others here can guide you.

Probably most folks scan in written documents. We fax to ourselves with UpDox..... Personal choice. Procedure notes etc get imported this way. I'm assuming affiliated labs faxes results and an electronic fax program such as UpDox just imports the .PDF. If something lives on your computer, one-trick is to print to your desktop as a .PDF file using CutePDF, and then import it.

Meds not in the database are tougher. Maybe someone else can help us.

I am told the trick to enter a non-codified medication is to double clidk the current medication list, start entering almost anything as name of the medication you want to add (like "vitamin"), pick one randomly from the list. Now highlight the name in the med name box, delete it, and type in whatever you want. It will now allow you to enter the rest of the medication data and save it.

is it possible to add old labs by date as you are transferring data into AC?
We are looking into purchasing AC, however, one big limitation to our current system is that I can not look at/trend labs independently...I have to open a file to see a copy of the lab that is scanned in.
I want to be able to see all the A1C's or BMP's obtained on a patient and see what direction their diabetes or renal failure is going...

Currently they do not have an easy way to add labs and have them graphable - if you have a national or regional lab then most have an interface which allows this - QUEST, PAML, LABCORP, ETC. You should call and speak with AC at the main line and discuss your needs.

Good stuff thanks. How can I print out parts of this forum for future use?
Ben

When we set up AC, I asked Quest about old data. They could send us old labs for import which would have allowed graphing,etc. But we decided not to. It would have meant hours and hours of importing with pauses to link labs to corrupt patient demographics. I really wanted to get something like the lab summary that Care360 can give, but think it is not possible. It might work to print the summary using CutePDF and then import patient by patient, but that would take a lot of work.

That's a great question. Are there any user functions that allow importing discrete trendable lab data into AC 6.0, assuming I can match demographics? I can get lab data and massage it into any format from MEDITECH, but cannot get it into AC.

I'm using LabCorp and we enter the patient demographics and the desired test online. I must say this is rather cumbersome. Are you saying Quest would allow just a quick order print instead? What about printing stickers for the tubes of blood?

Yes, Quest just takes the sheet as AC prints it. AND, if you ask real nice, I'll bet Bert will introduce you to this ultra cool. Label making program that makes labels directly out of AC a snap.

David, if I understand you correctly here, I think you can do this more easily by "printing" the document to the Updox print interface. You can then either import right into a patient's chart or put it in the workspace.

The Updox print interface is really useful in many ways...we keep learning additional work processes where it saves steps.

Jon,
You are correct, and that's really what I do. I'm not sure what I was thinking, but your way is best.