Home Forums Discussions Problems Is there a way for administrator to view messages from MD to staff?

Or any messages for that matter. Here is the scenario: Staff leaves employment with lots of messages left in their AC inbox. Or existing staff member is not checking their messages and letting them pile on. Bottom line, I or my office manager would like to have access to their inbox without having to go through the hassle of signing on as "them" to make sure they are reading / acting on messages on a timely fashion. Is there a way to do that with AC? Ideally there should be a way for an administrator to "supervise" the workflow. It is easier with paper, but I have not figured out a way to do it with AC.

Here is another "PITA" scenario: duplicate charts. I have so many! Sometimes it is patient's fault by giving different names. Sometimes it is the staff's fault who just does not check before making another chart in AC. Unfortunately, there is no way that I know of to find out who "made" the chart so I can't educate the staff member responsible. Instead I am left with sending messages to ALL the staff to not do that, yet it keeps happening. Basically, I need a way to audit who makes and touches the chart. 1984 all over I guess.

Gerardo:
I don't have an answer to your message issue.
On the second topic I would make two points. First, be aware that as of version 6.3 (I think) you can combine duplicate charts, so that facilitates "cleaning up" the mess of multiple charts for the same patient.
And there is a "way to audit"... just use the audit log. Go to the computer that houses your database, go to View...administrative options, and look at the audit log. If you go to the log with a list of the charts you want to check, you can filter the log by patient name or by AC ID number, and quickly determine who created the chart (among other things).

Jon:

I knew about that audit log but it has never worked for me. I get a "run time error" every time and AC crashes. I just confirmed this again from client computer and server housing databases twice.

I am using 6.3.3. Maybe this has been fixed in the newer version. I do plan to update soon.

I am glad to hear about the duplicate charts. I have 6.3.3. and I do not see the option to combine charts. Where is it located?

Thanks!

Gerardo

To merge charts:
Open the chart you want to merge.
Go to the demographics section
Under the file menu, at the bottom is "Merge this patient with another"
You must put the admin password at this point
Then you pick the chart it will be merged INTO (the chart you START from will be deactivated!!!)
It does show you some of the demographics when you are choosing the chart to make sure you have the right one.
THE PROCESS CANNOT BE REVERSED

Gerardo, we had the same issue with the audit log.
Sandeep suggested optimizing the database first, and that resolves the problem you describe.
The audit log should be viewed on the computer where the database resides.

Jon:
I have optimized the databases and get the same error. I am using the server with the AC databases. Thanks for trying.

Wendell:
Thanks I found it! I will try it and hope it works.

Gerardo,

No disrespect meant here but if your staff is not checking messages in a timely manner, than that person needs to be talked to. Either that or this person is getting overwhelmed with the volume of messages? If it's the latter, have you considered using the option to change the color of your subject when it's sent? ie Red, green or blue? This way you could make important messages have the subject "re" in green?

In the new message screen, you can change the color of the message sent by choosing a color next to the "Pull Chart" button.

You can check to see if your messages have been acted on by checking your outbox. If the message you sent hasn't been opened, it will be there. That's the best solution I can come up with.

Hope this helps

None taken Marty. I agree. I have a staff of 16. It is hard to keep track of messages for everyone. It would be nice to have a way to monitor the messages "behind the scene" so I can educate the staff, and if necessary let go of the staff, that is not doing their work diligently. Obviously this is not the only way I have of evaluating the staff but it is one aspect where I do NOT have a good handle of how they are doing. Their inbox is a "black box" to me unless I log in as them and frankly I just do not have the time. I need a more efficient way of monitoring the messages.

FYI:
I just spent some time trying to fix the audit log problem with Angel Support. They tried to run a database tuner and it crashed because my database is too big: 4 gigabytes. I will need to upgrade from 6.3.3 to 6.6.7. Does anyone have experience with this version? is it stable? I guess I have no choice. I was told I needed at least 12 gig of ram with my server. It currently has six.