Home Forums Discussions Problems Orders entered but not showing up

Often enough to motivate me to write, I type in an order to print out and give to the patient, when I hit print-the screen is blank. On good days if I send it to myself, it will be there and then I can print it. If not, I have to do it again.
This is especially a problem when I send an order to the front desk and there's nothing in the order.

I haven't kept up with the boards for a while, so if this was already discussed, please let me know. Thanks

Hi Vicki,

Which version of AC are you using?

Gene

6.3.3

Blank as in a white sheet of paper, or blank meaning the demos, etc are there but just not the "requested studies"?

There are some things about the Write Orders window (that is accessed through a patients chart) that are either counter-intuitive or non-functioning.

1. If you hit the print-orders button in the Write Orders window, the program will print ONLY the orders in the tab (Nurse, Labs, Imaging, etc) where the button is located. 2. The print-orders button in the Referrals tab simply doesn't work. And some tabs don't have print-orders buttons. 3. For the "Other" tab, where you can make custom orders that use free text, if you want to print the orders immediately you have to click on print-orders button before clicking on the ADD button (the ADD button sends the order to the list of orders box to the right).

If you print orders from the Main Window -> View -> Orders window, then everything prints out find, but you have to waste an entire sheet for a single order!

Sorry if you already know all of this. I wasn't too clear on the situation.

I will take one thing at a time as there is a lot. Bear with me as I am not debating just trying to understand. In fact, until I read your question, I have never had this issue, because I have A) never tried it and, B) never knew it was available.

Keep in mind that JB has stated on numerous occasions (for a long time) that the order section needs to be revamped.

Keep in mind also that I have never used Nursing, only occasionally use Labs, but have tons set up, rarely use imaging as I use Other for those, never use follow-up and never use Patient Ed.

But, I guess my question is why do you want to print everything at the same time. Again, I may be misreading your question. Do you generally print an Acute Hepatitis Profile along with a nursing order and a referral. I could see sending those all to your nurse electronically.

Sorry, no help, I guess.

On the Other tab, I am mainly concerned with printing the x-ray or lab req. The Add is for adding it to the chart.

Mario,
I think you have probably found the bug that is causing Vicki's issue; we will have to wait to hear from her.
Regarding your points:
#1- agreed. Not very intuitive, but you only can print one tab's orders at a time
#2- print referrals does work for me
#3- Yes, you must print BEFORE hitting add, or the orders do not print. Vicki, I bet this is why you sometimes get a printout and sometimes do not. Please test it out and report back.

Yeah. I'm wrong about this one. For Order Requisitions, there is no reason to print it all at the same time. I think of the orders requisition sheet as a list for patients to help them keep track of all the things they have to do or did do for a particular visit. In our experience, a significant amount of places accept their own special form and nothing else; I had forgotten the main purpose of a requisition form (which is to request a service(s)).

Also, I think that having a bunch of orders intended for different recipients on a single sheet could potentially be a violation of HIPAA.

However, it's not completely unimaginable to envision a situation where you'd mix orders from different tabs.
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JBS, I don't know if I'd call it a bug. I think it's that way by design. The problem is that the design is a little hard to figure out. Still, my observations might explain the problems Dr. Roberts is having: mixing different types of orders (e.g. "labs" and "other") and expecting it to print to the same sheet AND/OR the "other" Add/print-order order-of-operations.

I'm still not sure what "blank screen" means. I wonder if the whole report screen is an empty white space.
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I think that if the "Order Queue"(light-brownish box to the right of the Orders window) were reworked, then all these problems could be avoided. Expand it. Make it horizontally long. Add columns for dX (drop-down style) and print-orders (I haven't seen drop-downs and check boxes in the same table, so this will probably also have to be a drop-down list, with two options: print, do not print). Remove the print orders button from the tabs. Add a print orders button to the queue. Pressing the print orders button will print only those orders that have the "print" option selected.

on a little bit different note, it is annoying as hell that when you have 12 orders for a patient, and you look at them in the encounters area and hit the dot by "orders" and you wnat to print maybe the third one, when you hit hte print button guess what happens? all 12 (even ones from last year) show up. so you have to find the page that the order you want is on and print that page only..

@Ketan, Can you explain your dilemma in way more detail? I couldn't follow.

Please take this in the spirit it is intended, but can we make this any more complicated? This order module, as poor and confusing as it is, has been out for well over a year.

You open the order writer, select the labs tab, select the labs you want AFTER your diagnosis is checked. You click on print orders, click on print, and off they go. You then click on Add and Send Orders.

Do the same with most of the others.

Now all labs will be in View --> Orders to be reprinted exactly like the original.

That is known bug in 6.3.3. At least that is what angels told me right after 6.3.3. became available and I came across exactly same problem.

The order prints or forwards to others with nothing except the demographics.
Sometimes it will save the orders if I send it to myself.
Have hope that the upgrade to 6.5 will help.

What happens when you keep it simple:

Type your orders under "Other" and hit print.

Vicki....."you must print BEFORE hitting add, or the orders do not print. Vicki, I bet this is why you sometimes get a printout and sometimes do not. Please test it out and report back"

Jon, always print before adding. Hoping when I get set up with 6.5 this will go away.

I'm pretty sure he means that in the past encounters tab, if you want to see the orders you've saved, the only way to see the full page is to hit print. This will display every order you've saved in crystal reports. Then, if you want to print or fax one of them, you have to hit print on the crystal report window and select just the page(s) you want. I agree it's annoying, esp. if that patient has had a lot of orders saved.

Occasionally the front desk gets blank messages or it looks like an order is blank when it goes to my box. Part of that problem is that my patients have lots of diagnoses that are carried with an order. If you actually print out the order, it is on a 2nd or 3rd page

Can't you uncheck them all and only enter the diagnosis code you are doing the labs for?

Yes you can uncheck - some of the orders have had error where if you don't enter the diagnosis check mark first and then enter the order it will be blank - in the past I noted this and it is mostly gone.

I usually do uncheck=just forget to do so sometimes.