Using Patients - Patients Tab

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Patients Tab

• Start by entering the patient’s Surname, First Names and Title. The Initial and Salutation boxes will auto-complete based on the details entered into these three.

• Enter the address details for the patient. If you have purchased the postcode facility then you can enter the patients Postcode and then click the <ICON> to automatically fill in the address details.

• The NHS Number and National Insurance Number fields are not required fields but, obviously, provide useful information.

• When you enter the patient’s Date of Birth you will see that Optisoft automatically calculates the patient’s current age.

• Select the appropriate radio button for Private/NHS and patient Gender.

• The O.O., D.O. and GP fields can only be filled in if you have entered Staff and GP details on to the system. To find out how to do this see Opticians: Adding/Amending and Doctors: Adding/Amending

• Enter the patient’s contact numbers into the appropriate field. The mobile telephone number will be used by the SMS messaging module if it has been installed.

• Enter the patient’s email address into the appropriate field if they have one. This address will be used by the E-Mail messaging module if it has been installed.

• You can enter a patient Reference in the field provided. You can also set the system to automatically assign a reference number, or choose not to use reference numbers at all in the Patient Module Maintenance.

• You can add a patient’s photo to their record, either by using a webcam or by importing an image from a file.

• You can assign pre-set Lifestyle Codes to a patient’s record. These can be patient history information, i.e. Glaucoma, Diabetic etc, marketing information, i.e. spending habits, hobbies, profession, or any other information that may be of use.

• The patient’s last prescription is displayed at the bottom of the Patient tab. See Rx: Adding/Amending for more information.

• The Last Visit field is automatically updated by the Appointments module when the patient’s appointment has been attended.

• The Next Visit field is automatically updated by the Recall module. Based on your Recall Categories it will display the next point at which you have chosen to remind the patient. So, for example, if the patient has been sent their first recall letter and has not responded, this field will display the date at which their second recall letter is due to be sent.

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Family Members

If the patient that you are creating is a family member of an existing patient you can save time entering details by using the Family button. Ensure that you have the patient whose relation you are entering selected, see Finding Patients for information on searching for patients, and then click on the Family button. This will create a new patient record but will automatically insert the address details and home telephone from the related record. You then would simply fill in the remaining fields.

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Patient’s Prescription

The patient’s last prescription is displayed at the bottom of the Patient tab in the Patient’s Record screen. Optisoft retains all of the patient’s previous prescription details for future reference.

Adding a New Prescription

New patient prescriptions can be either be entered manually or can be imported automatically from the OptomNotes application.

To manually enter a new prescription you would use the following procedure.

On the Patient tab within the Patient’s screen click on the <ICON> button to open the prescription screen. You will see that this screen provides more information than the summary on the Patient tab. Click on the New button on the toolbar. If this is the patient’s first prescription this step is not necessary. Optisoft automatically selects today’s date for the new prescription. You can select another date by using the dropdown calendar or by simply typing in the desired date into the Date field. You can select the name of the optometrist who performed the examination using the O.O. dropdown box. See Opticians: Adding/Amending for details on adding staff members to this dropdown. When the prescription is saved this field will update the corresponding field on the Patient tab. Enter a description into the Description field. This will help you identify the prescription in the future. Enter the patient’s prescription details into the appropriate fields. If the field has a dropdown arrow you can click this to provide you with a list of standard values. You can also click into any of the fields and use the cursor (arrow) keys on the keyboard to scroll through a list of suitable values, for example the Sphere field provides a list of measurements at 0.25 intervals. You can enter a comment into the Comment field at the bottom of the Rx sceeen. Anything entered into this field will be saved for use on future prescriptions and will appear on the dropdown list here. Clicking on the Transpose button on the toolbar will automatically transpose the prescription details. Clicking on the Two Adds button on the toolbar will display the Intermediate Add field if the prescription requires it. Clicking on the BOZR/TD button on the toolbar will display the BOZR and TD fields if the prescription requires them. Once you have added the prescription to your satisfaction, click the Save button to save and close the prescription.

Viewing Existing Prescriptions

Optisoft retains all of the previously entered prescription details for a patient and they can be viewed through the Prescription screen in the Patient’s module.

To view an existing prescription for the selected patient you would follow the below procedure.

Click on the Rx button on the Patient tab to open the Prescription screen. The Prescription screen will open with the patient’s latest prescription details in it. You can view a list of all previous prescriptions by clicking on the Built-In Lists option underneath the search box. You can then select desired prescription and click OK to view it’s details within the main prescription screen. Alternately, you can use the search box itself to locate the previous prescription, for example if you enter the date of the previous entry it will locate this for you.

Editing an Existing Prescription

You can edit an existing prescription in Optisoft. This will, obviously, change the details if saved so care sure be taken to avoid mistakes here. To edit the patient’s latest prescription you would simply click on the Rx button to open the Prescription screen. You would then update the prescription here, clicking the Save button to permanently save the changes. To edit a previous prescription you would follow the procedure described in Viewing Existing Prescriptions to locate the desired prescription. Then, once the chosen prescription is displayed in the Prescription screen, make the desired changes. Again, clicking Save will permanently save any changes you have made.

Deleting an Existing Prescription

You can permanently delete a prescription from Optisoft. This will, of course, mean that the prescription information is no longer available to the patient record. The delete function should, therefore, be used with care.

To delete a patient’s prescription you would firstly locate the prescription by follow the procedure detailed in Viewing Existing Prescriptions. Once the prescription to be deleted is displayed within the Prescription screen, click the Delete button to delete the prescription record from the patient.

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Patient Photo

You can add a patient’s photo to their record so that it displays on the Patient tab of their record. If you have a webcam installed you capture the image directly by following the procedure below. Click on the Capture button, this will attempt to connect to the camera. The image window on the Patient tab will display the camera’s image. When you are happy with the image, click the Capture button again to capture the image. Click Save to save the image to the patient’s record.

If you do not have a webcam you can still attach images to the patient record. You will need to acquire an image of the patient and save it as either a Bitmap (BMP) or JPEG (JPG) file on your computer. Once you have the image saved you can click on the Import button on the patient’s details tab. This will open a dialog box allowing you to locate the saved image and attach it to the patient’s record.

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Lifestyle Codes

Lifestyle Codes can be used to add extra information to a patient’s record either for marketing purposes or simply as extra background information relating to the patient. They can be useful to quickly adding medical history data, such as Glaucoma or Diabetes, or patient spending habits or hobbies. Codes assigned to a patient allow you to generate lists of patients who fall into certain groups that can be used as a basis for targeting patients for a mailshot.

Assigning Lifestyle Codes

Before you can start you must set up your list of available Lifestyle Codes, see Lifestyle Codes: Adding/Amending

To add Lifestyle Codes to a patient record, do the following. Click on the <ICON> button to open the Lifestyle Codes screen. Select the desired radio button on the left hand side to select the category of code. Click on the Lifestyle Code you wish to add to the patient record. Left click the <ICON> button. You can repeat this process as many times as necessary. Once you have added the desired Lifestyle Codes you must click the Save button to save the details.

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Last Seen and Next Visit Dates

At the bottom of the Patients tab are a pair of date boxes, the Last Visit date and the Next Visit date.

Last Visit

The Last Visit field on the main Patient tab will display the last time that the selected patient was seen at the practice. This date is reached in different ways depending on the modules that you have installed. If you have the Appointment module installed then the most recent Attended appointment will be used as the Last Visit date. If you do not have the Appointment module then the Last Visit date will be calculated from the most recent prescription date.

Next Visit

The Next Visit field on the main Patient tab will display the next time that the selected patient is due in the practice. This date is reached in different ways depending on the modules that you have installed. If you have the Appointment module installed then the next booked appointment date will be used as the Next Visit date. If you do not have the Appointment module, or the patient does not have an appointment already booked for the future, then the Next Visit date will be calculated from the Recall system. The Recall system’s Next Letter Date will be displayed as the Next Visit date. If the patient has multiple Recall types then the earliest Next Letter date will be used. You can limit the Next Visit date to show only the First Band date, the date at which the first Recall letter should be sent rather than the date updating as the patient’s Recall letters are printed. See Patient Settings for more information on enabling this.

Setting Next Visit Date Band One Only

This setting limits the Next Visit date field on the Patient tab to only use the first band of the patient’s Recall category when calculating the projected next visit. This means that, even if the patient has not visited the practice for some time and has had Recall letters printed, the Next Visit date will always been shown as the date that the patient should have been in, based on the Recall Category that they have had assigned.

• Click on the in the top left of the screen
• Go to Maintain > Patients > Settings
• Click in the checkbox next to Next Visit Date Band One Only
• Click on the button to save the changes