Home Forums Discussions General Discussion Our Second Day Live with File Assist Pro!

In the same vein as Adam I am going to try to document for all you folks in AC land our experiences with File Assist Pro or FAP, designed by our dear friend Dr Bert Adams and his good friend and programmer Ed (whose last name I'm still not sure of).

It was suggested by our fellow User George that Jon design and package a "kit" for other software developers to then be able to design value added side programs that could work in conjunction with AC in a symbiotic kind of relationship. These are known by a few similar names, such as SDK, for Software Developer Kit. These kits allow other developers access to some of the inner workings of a bigger program so that they can then develop associated side programs that users can pick and choose which of any they may want or need to for their own use. FAP is this kind on animal.

It basically taps into your AC database enough to know who all your patients are in real time, so as you add 'em it gets the info too because it is connected to that part of the AC database.

So picture a sort of Virtual Index Card Box that you can make and choose the subject headings of your choice that are then all laid out alphabetically. So We have made such catagories are Old Charts, Intake Forms, Insurance Cards, Images, Labs, PT (physical therapy) Specialist Notes, Hospital Notes, Carrier stuff (for like requests of more chart info and other garbage they throw at us that is patient specific and half Med and half business), Calls (for pages and over night calls that we get a small faxed break down the following day for our answering service), Prior Auths, and we are still slowly thinking about creating one or two others. I think I will add a general Tests, tab for this like over night Oximetry and other tests run for us or by specialists.

So I purchased a Fujitsu ScanSnap 510 after all the glowing reviews posted here previously. Except for the fact that this little speed demon is USB only (not networkable) it is as we like to say in AC land "Amazing". I drive V-8's, and skate in some fairly up tempo hockey games with older teens and young adults; We now own a Xeon quad core, 4 gigs of RAM main tower that rocks; I know fast and this little sucker is fast!!! It rocks my scanning world. Thanks to all who put up with me and finally convinced me to purchase, it does not disappoint.

So this little beauty when combined with Bert's FAP I can see already is going to change our disorganized paper work. Our MA seems OK with while Nancy is still "adjusting". She wishes it was all in one chart and place. But as I said to her, look most labs since we shuffle most of them off to Quest now will be in the Imported Items as always and as AC grows up the data will continue to be more trackable, searchable and crunchable, which is a great thing. All the MidMark we run will still be in the imported items as well easy to pull up in their semi-native software as AC has interfaced.

Then Everything else will be in FAP. It really is that simple. It just takes a new set of habits to learn, that's all. But no more filing back log, searching thru accordian folders, paper files that run concurrent to our EMR files, and now we can all be looking at the same file for our various tasks. Shel the MA can be looking at something to start a visit, I can be looking at the intakes or insurance stuff for coverage issues, while Nancy is reviewing the same patient's labs just before she goes into the room to start a visit... Bam!!! In the word of Marissa Tomey in My Cousin Vinny, "What a F'ing Nightmare!!!" This is great!

Now what I really like about FAP over AC imported Items is we are scanning everthing to pdf format via the scansnap. It came with a two license version (two computers, same person that is) of Adobe 8 standard. Click and with a few gigs of RAM in this old tower that used to be our main tower until a few weeks ago, that puppy pops right up. Heck the scanner only cost about $300, so in a real sense I got $200 worth of top quality, real ownership software plus a great little scanner too. No less the other nice drivers and software that is the scanners too.

But instead of having files that simply say, 000000001, 000000002, that can one day loose their association to their charts and be a nightmare to relate back to their proper patients and chart, these things are named, by the Patient's Name, the catagory tab that we created on our own choice, and the date of the scan. And if and when Nancy starts another business, joins another group (hopefully never) sells the practice (when we retire), the CCHIT police shove their idea of the "perfect" charting system down all our throats, these folders, these PDF's, are all there in a great format, with a really solid naming system for easy transfere or archiving.

There are a few things to set up, but if you are sort of used to the setting the path and activation thing after your learning how to live with AC, then this should be a fairly simple set-up for you. Heck I have even solved a number of small details on my own after all the good teachings of our friends here at the board. At times I almost feel like I am getting "confident" and getting the hang of and understanding these things....

FYI, I am almost half way thru our first of three accordian files stuff with back filing. And more importantly I have so far easily kept up with the flow of new stuff coming in, so we don't continue to chase our tails in an attempt to catch up...

So I would say so far I am very happy, the MA is sort of happy and she will continue to be increasingly happy as this is one less clerical task for her to do, that me and my little scanner are going to relieve her of.... As for my doctor (my wonderful wife...) I think as she simply gets used to the basic change she will at least be quite OK with it. Matter of fact, seeing that I am now relieving the MA of a certain pain in the @$$ filing and clerical task, as my doctor starts to regain a few good minutes to perhaps an hour or so of her assistant every day, I think she is going to grow increasingly happy with the new system....

Just had a great idea of Bert, let me run....

Paul

Paul:

What platform is FAP designed in? MS Access too? Cool...

Can you post some pictures of the interface?

I agree with you about Scansnap... I just bought one and it looks like a nifty peripheral. Over at emrupdate, though, they praise the Visionere products because Scansnap is not TWAIN compliant. Heck, I'm happy with PDF or JPG image support (URL- http://scansnap.fujitsu.com/faq/5110_buy3.html ).

Can you post some pictures of the interface?
Hmmmpf!!!! lol You see Bert?

Hey Bert, this is your baby, Why don't you do the honors of properly getting a few screen shots up here. I'm so febble at these things....

Oops...

OK, just a sec. Patient care does come first every once in awhile, lol.

Really?????? Oh, I mean, really... Yes why of course... Awww come on now Bert, take a bow....

"May the applaudes be so loud, that you have to bend your knees so low, as to break a leg."

Paul,
The programmer's name is Special Ed, sometimes goes by Mister Ed. But since Bert will attest to the fact the he claims he has a "potato in his belly," that he could likewise be called Potato Head Ed.

Was that the certain radio, x-ray picture that was posted the other day, or was that not Bert's? It has the question of "what is this?" with some lump located somewhere in the pelvic region. But I am such a non-clinical person that I wouldn't even know if that was a picture of a male or female pelvis. I only know them for sure from the outside.....

Donna would have liked that last line. We miss ya kid.

Paul

Very Wierd. Just had our wired peer that has the scanner on (not the main machine with the data files for AC or FAP) suddenly not be able to see the new scans it was scanning in. Even closing and re-opening FAP didn't help. Rebooting the peer didn't help.

The other wireless peers were able to see the three new temporary docs I had scanned. So I went to the admin section of FAP, and double checked and re-set that particular peer's path back to the data folders and now it seems to be OK. So somehow this peer had "lost it's path"....

But now it's found....

I mentioned Bert's program at the Conference this weekend, as a potential stepping-stone for those seeking to become paperless, or more paperless than they are presently.

You can get a lot of the features of FAP by using OneBox and UpDox, I believe, but at a higher cost and with a lot of other features that people might not find necessary.

Or if you use FAP fairly well you might be able to fore go those other options altogether. Gotta run, big meeting in town and I don't want to be too late....
Paul

Brian,
Excellent Chicken my friend. "Where does he get all those wonderful toys??"

Re: cool avatars

Here's my method

Google Images -> save image and open with Microsoft Office Picture Manager -> Edit Pictures -> Custom Width and Height -> 80x80 pixels (compress if needed).

Not the how, but where??? I was just wearing one of my "Save the Chickens" tee-shirts this weekend as a matter of fact. You know about the free ranging chickens of Key West, right? Nancy and I have a thing, an inside joke, and a family thing about chickens. You have now avitared two great chickens. Buck, buck!

And now back the reason for this thread (And now for something completely different... IT'S.....)

My watchbox doorbell is working all too well. Now since FAP take a few moments to load even on our newest and fastest computers, one doesn't want to close and open it each and every time they need to check it. So.... it would be nice to be able to only mute the "Incoming Doorbell" if one wants to. Nancy wants to leave it up on her examroom laptop, leave the main sound up for the other feedback it supplies for using other programs, but still be able to mute the FAP doorbell.

Now as an old audio engineer who always wanted to be a "Foley Artist" (100 points to anyone who knows what a foley artist is) I get a real kick out of it every time I hear it, but I'm in the back scanning a whole bunch of stuff and to hear at least four computers all out of sync a bit no less, all go "Ding-Dong" does get a bit annoying. Just about every time it rings a few moments apart while I'm doing a mass set of scans I can hear Michele our MA giggling from half way down the hall. And sometimes the patients too. Well at least everyone is happy and smiling I guess.

But none the less a "mute doorbell" feature that is controlled at the individual computer is really needed.

"SCAN ON!!!"

I just google them up & crop them judiciously (crop! chicken! chicken crop! That's a joke, son!)

We currently have about 20-30 chickens of various kinds (Wonderful animals!) and five chicken avatars. The current avatar is my favorite.

Bert:

My experience with F.A.P. is limited, but can't you drop any sound file you like into the main folder?

We just want a radio button or something similar to just allow us to toggle the thing on or off. Shel and I just can't keep from giggling every time the darn thing rings.... "Ding Dong, Avon calling" I swear it sounds so cool and yet so corny too. I love it, but Nancy just doesn't want it ringing in the examroom while she's got some patient breaking down, spilling their guts about their cumby sex life or marriage, or both...

"I'm sorry but you've got the clap..." DING DONG!!!! Very funny but not cool...

Settings --> Cutomize Items --> Uncheck "Play Sound on New Arrival.

This preference has been there since the very first alpha version.

And, yes, Brian you can use any .wav file you like. One could even make their own that says, "I'm very sorry to hear that," which would score Nancy points while she is doing her history. Of course, it may sound kinda weird when she steps out of the room for a moment.

Contrary to popular belief, I only scan the message boards three times daily, so an email or PM would enable me to answer any support questions a bit quicker. Also, if the support questions weren't separated by Chicken Avatar posts, I may see it more quickly. Then, again, maybe not.

Buck???

Well I guess then I'm the Ding Dong here... Thanks. Actually, we have a patient that is selling Avon products and the girls are giving her some semi-regular business lately. So she and her hubby and son show up just as I'm scanning some of the last stuff of the day. So I cranked up the two towers in the back because they have semi-decent speakers, as well as the laptop at the front desk.

Then jokingly I asked Shel in a loud voice from the back, "Hey Shel did I just hear our Avon lady coming in" and finished the scan on cue so the thing would ring thru out the office... "DING DONG!!" They all got a real big hoot out of it. Like I said, I actually like the thing, on those nasty no good days where otherwise everyone would getting snippy, it makes me and Shel smile and giggle. Just Nancy doesn't want it ringing on her laptop in the examroom when things are getting serious or heavy that's all...

And the reason I posted it here instead of on an email was I thought others would find it humorous as well as to know I'm not just blindly promoting your software because we are AC buddies. Now they can see I'm being dead honest about it all. The good and the not so good...

DING DONG!

Well, our story was we had FAP running on all seven machines. We had just opened so we were scanning in all old charts plus the faxes that were coming in. We share our office with another physician's office. So, the PCs were all set at various decible levels. I was oblivious to the ding-dongs, because I was used to them. But, you can imagine how many ding-dongs were going off. It was basically non stop ding dongs. So, the other doctor comes to me and asks if we can stop the ding dongs. I, like you, had no idea where Special Ed had put the option. So, we had to turn off our sound until I could figure it out.

Hey Paul,

I have an idea. Since Avatars are coming out of the woodwork and we all have our famous signatures (I can't get rid of mine no matter how many people don't remember the classic Carly Simon song), shouldn't there be a prize for the best three avatars and signatures at the next ACUC?

Or it could be most original, best color, most likely to piss someone off, etc. Or most [censored]

I just threw in the swear word to get the censored thing. And, to pay tribute to George Carlin.

By the way, how many off topic posts before one is considered a hijacker?

"Here I come to Save the Daaaayyyy!!!!!!!!!"

"Unhand that thread you evil doer of hijacking. Don't worry thread, I'll save you!"

And why is your smiley face a sick around the gills green???

It's due to the insurance company crap and all the CCHIT.

Well then seeing that I'm a practice manager and your a doc, so I have to deal with all that CCHIT at least twice as much as you do, I should be doubly green around the gills...

Oh now I get why I'm some smiling fool.... DING DONG!!!

The question is why are we all here on the user board on a Saturday night. Isn't there a good yellow wine somewhere?

I came back from Branson in a state of total exhaustion. and my first day back was a call day, and I was up all night. I was supposed to be off the next day, but one of my patients came in, in labor (my LAST OB PATIENT -- I made the announcement six months ago and I am winding it up).

Today is the first day I had to rest. It rained all day and I did nothing but sleep, and now there is a gorgeous pink-orange sunset lighting up the mist over the farm.

How best to cap off a day like that -- the User Board, of course!

Well, always good to have you on, Brian.

Bert and rest of the gang as well,

As you all know we are scanning away here. I've got an interesting question for the group think here. And here is my own paranoid protect my doctor practice manager think on it all.

Most times what we all recieve especially by fax has extranious stuff like cover pages, last page with nothing of interest on it and the like. But none the less, at the top of most of these things, it will say, "page 1 of 6", "page 6 of 6", so on and so forth, you all get the picture here.

Now since we are using FAP and scanning to our hearts content, now that all this paper most reasonable sized pieces of data, I'm keeping any and all of these things. My thinking about it is, one day hopefully to never some, some hot shot lawyer is going to try and hang us up with, "Well Dr Blake this fax transmission says pages 1 thru 5 of 6, well please tell us, where is page 6???" Now we all know that we ditched and shreaded page 6 because the note was over, there was no clinical data on this last page worth keeping, but now it couls look like we ditched a page because it didn't support us some how. Same thing with page 1 at the begining, we all know that most times page 1 is just a cover page, but you catch my drift here...

Now what is really driving me nuts here is at least one of our labs is combining multiple patients' results in one fax tranmission. Now it certainly saves a little bit of paper and ink with at least one less page per patient for the extra cover sheet for each one; but again, now I have this transmission that at the top says page 1 of 6 and now both of these patients' scans have headers that could be misused to imply like we lost half or more of their results and that is how and why there was some error or that we are intentionally hiding some of the data for some reason. Obviously we didn't but it sure could be used against us some how.

Am I being too paranoid here or is this an old case of one is not really paranoid when they really are out to get you???

So like what is everyone else doing here and what is your thoughts on all of this???

Yes, you are being too paranoid. ALL of our radiology reports have a second page that has the name of the radiologist on it. We delete it. I just wouldn't worry about that.

Our lab has been very accommodating with the above. They always put a cover page which says "Lab reports on so and so and so and so, so we don't save them all as just one of the so and sos.

I do the same. Get rid of the miscellaneous scrap pieces of data. They serve no purpose. If you have the main page, you can always have the lawyers get the oringinal at the hospital or lab and prove you did not tamper w/ anything.

Adam,
Is that avitar supposed to be Louis Pasture??? Sure kind of reminds me of that old B&W movie about him....

Paul,
I am VERY glad you asked. I've been hoping someone would.
The avatar is Andrew Taylor Still, M.D./D.O. He is the founding father of my profession, Osteopathy.

Go here for some more information on him.

http://www.osteopathic.org/index.cfm?PageID=ost_still

Again, thanks for asking Paul.

Is he playing the sax? We have this abstracting painting at the hospital that is called street musicians. I think one is playing the clarinet but ask Adam, it looks like the world as the largest weed ever smoked.

Caveat: If this doesn't belong on the board, will one of the moderators please strike it down.

"Son I think you have a femor, I mean a fever... oh never mind"

No, the trom-BONE! (rimshot) Ha!