Home Forums Discussions Feedback and Recommendations Search within patient chart.

I am not sure if there is already a way to do this. But, how do I search for a specific word on a patient's chart?
Eg.: Being an early AC adapter, some patient charts go back to over 10 years. Let's say I want to know if a seizure patient was ever on Aptiom. I may have given her a sample or she may have taken it prior to seeing me and I made a mention in my note. How do I search for that specific word Aptiom in the patient's chart?

Others may have other ways, and if you wish to narrow it down to a certain time you likely could, but probably best to keep it simple and just search through the whole thing. I have over 14 years of records and searched on fluoxetine and came up 77 entries in about 45 seconds.

Once in Reports it is:

Category: Notes and Encounters
Field: Any field (you can narrow this, but I would suggest doing every field the first time)
Operator: Contains (only choice)
Value: Your choice. Maybe put the whole word or possibly just a few letters depending.

Add criteria. Run report. When the reports come back, you can click directly on them to open charts or perform other commands on them.

Yep, yep, yep. That's how you do it.

Hi Bert.
It has been long since we connected last.

Your process identifies a specific chart/patient. I have already done that.

I need to know where in that specific patient's chart is the word Fluoxetine (in your example).

An ideal location would be to place an additional search option in the "Past Encounters" to search for specific words.

Go to the patient's Past Encounters tab.
Click the Progress Notes only button on the left side. This will show all notes in text format. Unfortunately it isn't searchable. But you can select all, copy and paste it into a program that is searchable (I typically use Notepad).

Very useful tip

Interesting workaround. Thank you. (Still does not search phone calls and other messages.) A dedicated search option would be great.

Definitely agree about the need for a better/easier search function. As for searching messages, The only way I've found to do that is with SQL Server Mgmt Studio on the main computer.

If you have access to that, here's the query I use:

SELECT Date, PatientName, Body FROM PatientMessages
WHERE PatientName LIKE 'LastName, FirstName%'
AND Body LIKE '%message%


(where 'LastName, FirstName' is the patient's name and 'message' is the word or phrase you're searching for. Don't delete the % signs.)

It will list the date, patient, and message text. You can use that info to pinpoint where the message is in the patient's chart.

That is a very good work around. Since I print those to a pdf all the time, I tried just printing to a pdf and using its search function. The nice thing is you can click Next to get to the next word or words you are looking for, and the highlight function happens to be right above, so I can click that, and it highlights the word, and you can save it.

As to the SSMS, do you have a version previous to v9. The version where AC support has to install it, would have an sa username and password specific to that practice. So, you would have to hack it.

Practices have to request and sign a release document 9.1and later, but they will then get a password that they can use SSMS, along with the standard warning that if "You Break It You Buy It".

These days this is standard practice for us.

It's a little late when it is part of the credentialing process. I would rather just hack it.

What you and I would do is very distinct to what most practices are going to consider.

For most practices, having the credentials provided to them is the lowest cost and difficulty.

Annnnnnd, here's another option:

From the Patient List or schedule, right click on the patient's name and select 'Print Formal Health Record'
When the HIPAA Alert dialog box appears, click Skip This Info since you aren't releasing the information to anyone.
The next dialog box will present a list of options you can select to 'print'. Select the ones you want. UNSELECT THE IMPORTED ITEMS BUTTON AT THE BOTTOM (unless you want to open a boatload of PDFs).
Click the Preview button.
You can then search that document. It's clunky, but everything is in one document.

You can also export the file to a PDF and search using Adobe or whatever PDF reader you use. Searching is easier this way, but you have to be sure to delete the document when you're done.

Note: Don't click the print button or it will immediately start printing to your default printer. It's one of the few times you don't get the "are you sure you're sure that you're sure you want to do this" batch of messages. I think staff enjoys watching me practically leap over my desk to shut the printer down though.