Latest news

 Welcome to patientchase.com
Catch up here on important messages,
new features, tips and ways to get in touch.

February 1, 2010

Tip – Speeding up the Search Builder

You can momentarily disable the patient counter while using the Search Builder.

This speeds up making your selections, and is most useful when there are many patients in the categories.

To do this, open the Search Builder and press the ‘p’ key to switch the counter off.
Press the ‘p’ key at any time to switch the counter back on.

Click on the image below for a screenshot of the counter disabled:

August 9, 2010

Tip – Hiding specific prose on patient letters

In addition to being able to customise the automated prose appearing in your mail merge letters, you can also hide a term so it does not show on any of the letters.

In other words, you may wish to recall patients on specific registers or for specific QOF indicators, but you may not wish to display the related term in the letters.

To hide a specific register phrase or specific QOF indicator term:

1) Go to Tools>Options>Prose
2) Select the term
3) Replace the text with [NULL]
4) Click Save.

Subsequently, no text will appear on the letter but PatientChase will still record your invitation for 1st, 2nd, 3rd letter auditing purposes.

Click on the thumbnail below to view an example.

July 28, 2010

Tip – Letter templates – additional fields

In addition to the existing merge fields found in the letter and label templates (access the templates by going to Tools>Options>Letters), any of the following 4 extra merge fields can be added to your template:

[NHSNo]
[DOB]
[Sex]
[TelNo]

Remember to enter them exactly as shown above.

July 27, 2010

New Patch coming soon

A new patch will be coming your way soon. When the splash screen changes on starting up PatientChase please click on the button which has the text “Click Here to download the update then click on Run”.

After this please Open or Run the patcher and go through the instructions. The whole process should not take any more than a few minutes.

This patch contains a few minor tweaks and fixes which we found since the last update and will change the version to 1.70.02. If you have any problems with patching up please contact customer support.

Many thanks.

Dr Raza Toosy
GP and Developer

How to use Key Presses in the new Wizard

I’d just like to go in more detail around how you can easily choose groups of targets to quickly pick the ones right for your surgery. You’ll notice this legend on the bottom of the wizard panel .

By pressing a keyboard button, you can automatically select targets which are linked to certain criteria. The text will turn bold when you select these groups of targets.

Threshold Keypresses
Pressing the ‘r’ key will select/deselect all targets you are below 20% to target.
Pressing the ‘b’ key will select/deselect all targets you are within 20% of target.
Pressing the ‘g’ key will select/deselect all targets you have achieved.

This way you can easily focus on targets where your surgery is underachieving within a few keystrokes

Grouping Targets Across Clinical Domains
In general you can separate QOF Targets into the following categories as explained in this diagram

Pressing the ’s’ key will select/deselect all targets related to indices which are too high eg BP too high or Cholesterol too high.
Pressing the ‘v’ key will select/deselect all targets related to requesting bloods or urine across clinical domains.
Pressing the ‘f’ key will select/deselect all the flu targets.
Pressing the ‘t’ key will select/deselect targets which are time limited eg DEP3.
Pressing the ‘a’ key will select/deselect targets which are review type eg where a foot pulse or blood pressure needs to be checked or where a review needs to be done (this keypress is not displayed in the wizard).

Pressing ‘l’ will select any pre-saved targets. If you have a set of targets you use often select them, then press F8 to save them. When you press ‘l’, those targets will be loaded and selected on the Wizard. This way you can select any custom group of targets saved for your use next time.

I’ll go over some examples around how to use this combination of key presses next time.

Raza Toosy
GP and Developer. PatientChase.

May 20, 2010

Tip – Flagging up QOF patients within your Month of Birth register searches

Did you know that you can identify those patients with a specific month of birth who also have outstanding QOF targets?

In other words, not only can you run a month of birth search for patients on any combination of registers, but you can also REMOVE from that list any patients who do NOT need to be seen. This leaves you with a list of patients who are born in a particular month AND who have outstanding QOF targets.

This overcomes those instances where you invite patients born in a certain month who perhaps attended recently anyway and therefore have no QOF targets.

To flag up month of birth patients with outstanding QOF targets, do the following:

1) Run your month of birth ‘Register’ search as normal.

2) Run a ‘Not in Target’ search covering all those indicators you wish to identify as outstanding for your patients. For example, select the indicators in the same domains picked in step 1.

3) Export the search you created in step 2 to Excel.

4) Remove the header row in the Excel spreadsheet and save the file as a csv file somewhere on your PC. Close Excel.

5) Back in PatientChase, load the ‘Results’ view of the search you created in step 1 to display the patients on the right hand side.

6) Right click over this list of patients.

7) ‘Select Patients from Excel Export’.

Locate the file created in step 4 and click ‘Open’.

9) All those patients with oustanding targets will be highlighted in blue.

10) Right click over any of these highlighted patients and select ‘Inverse Patients Selected’. This will select all those patients who do NOT have any of the targets you selected in step 2.

11) Right click over any of these newly highlighted patients and select ‘Delete Patients from Search’.

You are now left with a list of patients who have your chosen month of birth AND who have QOF targets.

REMEMBER – You’ll need to rerun or refresh your searches each month (or however frequently you run off letters) to make sure you have the most up to date figures.

May 14, 2010

New Version Available with Enhanced Wizard Panel

We have been working hard to update the Wizard Panel. Now reduced to one screen for ease of use, it is slicker and it is easier to obtain the targets you require. You now export to word and excel from the Search Library.

Simply run the update file when requested on the start up screen when running PatientChase and go through the update process. Hint. If you feel the patient count is updating too slowly, press ‘p’ on the wizard to turn the patient count off and ‘p’ again to turn it on. I’ll post more about extra features of the wizard with examples soon.

Raza Toosy
GP and Developer, PatientChase.

May 7, 2010

The Nursing in Practice Awards 2010

Do you know a primary or community care nurse or team who are quietly making huge strides in healthcare delivery?

Did you introduce a new strategy or protocol in your practice that improved service delivery?

And has PatientChase helped in this delivery?
For example, the introduction of QOF clinics, fewer necessary patient visits or a more informed chronic disease population?

If any of this sounds familiar then The Nursing in Practice Awards 2010 want to hear from you…

The Nursing in Practice Awards 2010 have been designed to reward the outstanding works carried out by primary care nurses and their teams, who have undertaken projects to improve the quality of care for their patients.

For further information about the awards and on how to enter, please visit www.nursinginpractice.com/awards or call Rebecca Pegg on 020 7214 0598.

The Nursing in Practice Awards team

March 25, 2010

Do you have a touchscreen mobile phone?

We’ve created a mobile version of www.patientchase.com. You can now view all the latest news on our website from your touchscreen mobile phone.

Modelled after Apple’s app store design specs, www.patientchase.com loads lightning fast.

Click the image for a screenshot:

Officially Supported Devices:

iPhone (all models)
iPod touch (all models)
Android-based smartphones (native browser)
Palm Pre (native browser)
BlackBerry Storm (native browser)

March 1, 2010

Super Fast Syncs! – New Version Release (1.69.05)

We’re delighted to announce that we’ve just released our latest version which now comes with super fast syncing.
On average, syncs with EMIS now take a matter of minutes, meaning that you can now update PatientChase instantly with the latest clinical activity.
This major advance in the way PatientChase collects patient data from EMIS will save you a lot more time and makes using PatientChase even more convenient.
The sync progress screen looks different too and provides added assurance of sync status and completion.
‘Date of last Sync’ now also added.

Click the image for a screenshot:

Here’s what one of our practices has said about the latest version:

“Just wanted to say how impressed I am with the improvements that have been done to PatientChase. The new superspeed sync of patients is wow! What a difference – can do it more often – always up to date!” Jackie Hogg, Clinical Data Manager, The Baffins Surgery

Look out for the patch update on your startup screen.

February 4, 2010