Home Forums Discussions General Discussion Sign-off for imported labs

When we implemented AC a year ago we started out importing labs from quest but the docs soon decided that they would rather just have the PDF version imported as it made it a lot easier to sign-off because they could review on one page sign-off and move to the next item. With the imported items they had to open, click report or scroll through results click a few more screen to sign-off and then go back to box and open the next one. Has this process improved with the updated versions or what process do other use to sign off on these labs?
Our intention is to have everyone clean up their in-boxes and then mass import the labs and mass sign off so we have the data on the charts. But I think in near future we will need to import them daily. So just exploring if there is a better\more efficient way to sign-off.

Joel,

I may misunderstand your question, but it sounds like you are no longer doing HL7 direct imports with lab results but saving as PDF files.

With all due respect, I think you might want to consider what you can do with the results stored as HL7 imported data versus stored as PDF's.

The huge advantage of HL7 imported lab results directly into AC is having the ability to graph out the results at the time of the office visit. Take for instance, you have a diabetic with stage lll chronic kidney disease who has been getting every 3 month HgA1C results and renal panels. At the time of the visit by clicking onto HgA1C results in the directly imported lab section in AC, then clicking on the graph tab, the results can be easily graphed out and printed and given to the patient. Any result can be done this way and it is extremely quick, powerful, and easily understandable to the patient and makes tracking and observing response to disease treatment over time quite easy.

If the lab results are not directly imported by HL7 this capability to graph out and makes sense of the data over time cannot be done unless you direct input certain parametes on the flowsheet section of the summary page, which is redundant and time consuming.

I would argue that with signing off lab results in the HL7 format the process is much easier, as one can click on individual results to see trends. Otherwise with PDF results, one has to click on the date of the entire BCS12 each year and compare to the current one, which is IMHO less efficient use of time.

So I would push for the HL7 direct lab import, as it is not only easier to make sense of while in the inbox, more importantly, the data points graphed out over time is a powerful tool in the exam room.

We happen to use Quest, and I will generally have the lab/results drawn 2-3 days before the visit, print a letter to Updox, "Dear John, Here are your results which we can discuss at your appointment and see you on Thursday." Also, I will print the lab results to Updox, then sign off the lab results. My nurse sends the letter and labs thru the portal to their email address all HIPAA safe and secure.

This is also one of the meaningful use criteria to have labs imported via HL7
We painfully discovered that when lanes are scanned in they need to go to another folder which we named Labs Scanned, which we created, otherwise the PDFs count against the scoring if they are in lab folder

I'm with Jimmie on this. Having the labs come in electronically allows for trends to be seen more easily.

It is a pain to click a bunch of times but I use the short-cut keys to sign off labs. Once I click the lab to open it, I hit Alt-S twice then click once to sign it off