Home Forums Discussions Problems Need help documenting A1C, lipid screening

Hey experts, I'm a psychiatrist who prescribes antipsychotics for bipolar and schizophrenia and do metabolic monitoring including A1C, lipid panel, wt, BP. There has to be a way to display this as a running spreadsheet or decision-making protocol. Mine is too random. Ideas?

The only way I am able to have a running process is to have the labs imported via the lab interface. The lab sends the results via interface and each lab draw populates across as a history result that can be seen after each lab draw. If the patient chooses to use a lab without an interface it does not keep a running chart of the results.

Sorry, probably not a help for you

shrinkrap,
In its general sense, the feature you are asking about is a very basic, nearly universally used feature of medical record keeping. What I always suggested back in the days of transitioning from paper to electronic was to think about how you did before, and adapt. The EMR is supposed to make the process easier and more fool proof. Unfortunately, with AC the is basically non-existent and work arounds tend to be clunky and cumbersome.

Sorry if I divert to a brief rant, but this is a simple feature of most decent EMR's which is lacking in AC. Some of us have had it as our number one request from the company for years.

The requested feature is clear: you should be to easily keep a chart of historical labs in the patient's note, and add labs as they are done. You should be able to import labs (in this or other forms) into the note if you chose.

This should be an automated process as labs come in (it is an electronic record, after all). In AC though, even without the automation, you can't even really import or put labs into the note in any visually useful manner.

A work around is to create a blank (or partially templated) spreadsheet, import it into the imported items of a patient's chart, and update the spreadsheet as labs come in. This is a cumbersone PITA with various flukes and oddities that pop-up but if you think it serves your purpose and you want to hear more about it, then let us know. I am not sure how many people use this approach.

I thought of something this morning while readings JBS response.

With a chart open for an encounter, you can go to the Summary Sheet Tab, there is a section called Tracked Data/Flow Sheets (middle way on right hand side), click add/edit and enter the lab test name you want to track (this drop down list will be saved for each pt) enter the value and date and VOILA you have a record of levels that can be tracked! We used to do this with our PSA results but no longer due to the lab interface.

It shows that this can be graphed and printed. When I try to print the info I have in these fields then all the data shows up to be printed and this may not be what you are needing. I also don't think the graph would work very well if you have multiple data sets and values, but I have not tried. I can see the values of previous things with just using the small drop down arrow next to the value block.

Hope this makes sense and helps.

@JBS: this would be a nice feature, we tried to add in values in the chart and just seemed to be too much for primary care because of the sheer volume. We even tried with the in-house waived urines but the template took too long and looked weird when we printed the chart. It is easier to write out on paper and import the sheet. We have to go back to the imported labs much like the old days of flipping a page to the lab results when we had paper notes.

Chris - THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!
That is exactly what I needed. I have an inactive LabCorp interface (one-way, AC doesn't have capability to electronically send requests I am told to LabCorp according to LabCorp). I quit using it but may start again. For the last year we have to call every time to get the labs faxed (use Updox to import) and Labcorp swears they have our fax number but never do it. With the interface, I seem to recall we had to go to File/Import & Export each time to see if there was any lab and were charged and was duplicated by the fax. Is that how it's still imported?

Setup the Labcorp interface. Ask you labcorp rep ahead they'll usualy pay for the AC yearly fee.

Auto imports labs daily. categorized and easily graphable by clinking on lab in imported items.

No software to install. Now all done on ACs end.

I do not have Labcorp, I have a local lab and Clinical Pathology Lab. It shoudl be easy , like beagle posted. Sounds like you need a discussion with the local Labcorp rep/manager.

I have the interface set up for both of the labs we use locally. For me the lab comes in automatically every day. The only time I have to manually import is when there is a note saying there was a problem, usually a name spelling error on the lab end. If you or Labcorp have had the interface set up then it should be automatic. My labs set up and paid for the initial fee and I pay yearly for the interface fee from AC, it is about $150 if I remember correctly.