SOUP UP YOUR IN-BOX (User's Manual, pgs. 754-758)

1. Press View\In-Box\Options and check Use Network Index. This causes any data elements (Lab results, Messages, Orders, etc.) you store from now on to be stored in the In-Box Index.

Although the above step is sufficient to allow In-Box Sending and Noting, In-Box Comments, and In-Box Journal, you will generally want to also build the In-Box Index, so that program items that you have stored previous to checking Use Network Index are also included in the In-Box. If you fail to build the In-Box Index after enabling Use Network Index, then any items that would ordinarily appear in the In-Box but which were stored previously will not appear in your In-Box. (Building the In-Box Index is unnecessary if you start using Welford Chart Notes with version 4.3 or later, because Use Network Index is turned on by default, and you won't have any older unindexed In-Box items in your database).

Let's build the In-Box Index:

1. Press View\In-Box\Tools\Build Index.

2. For Start Date, choose a date 90 days before today. (A quick way to do this is to press Calendar, press <Pg Up> 3 times or else Month <<< 3 times, then Ok).

3. For End Date, specify a date 10 years from now (or as late as the last Datebook entry you have entered).

4. Leave all of the program functions checked in Include, unless there are program functions listed there that you know you have never used before.

5. Press Ok to rebuild the Index. This may take several minutes.

Now that we have set up the In-Box Index, we are ready to send and note items. To see how this works, suppose you have 2 users, Beverly McFadden and Suzy Secretary. Suzy enters a chest X-ray report into the program:

1. Press View\Lab Book.

2. Enter the patient's name (e.g. Kelly Erickson)

3. Press Add to add a new Lab result.

4. For Test, enter CXR; for Abnormal, enter Abnormal; for Result, enter "cardiomegaly".

5. Press the Send button .

6. Check Beverly McFadden (the user you want to send this result to) and press Ok. (Note that you are permitted to send the result to multiple users if you so desire. The program automatically lists all of the users of the program who have at least Read Only Security Access to this particular kind of data item, in this case to Kelly Erickson's Lab Book; it doesn't permit you to override Security Access and send the item to the In-Box of a user who doesn't have permission to view this information).

7. Press Ok to store this Lab Book item, and to send it to Beverly McFadden's In-Box.

8. You will notice that this Lab Book item does NOT appear in Suzy Secretary's In-Box, since she didn't send it to herself.

9. Log onto the program as Beverly McFadden. You will see this result in her In-Box.

Beverly has many choices at this point as to how to handle this Lab Book item:

1. If she wants to see the full item, and perhaps edit it, she can either double-click on it, or highlight it and press Edit. Once in the Lab Book, she can choose to Send or mark the item as Noted by pressing the corresponding button, or simply close the Lab Book without doing either one.

2. If she wants to write a Comment about it that gets attached to it as an In-Box Comment, she can either press her right mouse button on it and select Comment, or highlight it and press Tools\Comment. She can then type in a Comment about it. Any previously stored Comments about it, written by other users, and also shown in the Comment window.

3. If she wants to see who else has sent the item previous to herself, she can press her right mouse button on it and select Journal, or she can press Tools\Journal.

4. If she wants to send this item to another user, she can press her right mouse button on it and select Send, or she can highlight it and press the Send button at the bottom of the In-Box.

5. If she wants to mark that she has noted this item, and remove it from her In-Box without sending it to another user, she can press her right mouse button and select Noted, or she can highlight the item and press the Noted button at the bottom of the In-Box.

These same choices pertain to the other kinds of In-Box items that can be sent and noted (such as Datebook, Images, Messages, Orders, etc.).

Let's try writing a Comment and sending the item back to Suzy Secretary:

1. Press the right mouse button over the Lab Book item in the In-Box and press Comment.

2. Type in "Tell Kelly I need to see her today." in the Comment Editor and press Ok.

3. Press the right mouse button and select Send.

4. Check Suzy Secretary and press Ok.

5. Note that the item has now disappeared form Beverly's In-Box.

6. Log onto the program as Suzy Secretary.

7. Notice that the item now appears in her In-box, and that a "C" appears in the Cmt column, alerting her that there is a Comment about this item.

8. Right click on the item and select Comment.

9. Suzy can now read the comment, along with which user wrote the Comment and when the Comment was written (which are stored for you automatically by the program). She can now call the patient and set up the appointment. Press Ok to close the Comment window.

10. Press the right mouse button over the item and press Noted. It is now removed from Suzy's In-Box. (Note that it is still in Kelly Erickson's Lab Book; Noting an item doesn't erase it from the program, it just makes it stop appearing in the In-Box, so the user knows it has been handled).

Welford Medical Computing, Inc.

3779 Hermitage Trail

Rockford, IL 61114

or

MEDCOM Information Systems, Inc.

2117 Stonington Avenue

Hoffman Estates, IL 60195

http://medcom@emirj.com