We’re often approached by practices wishing to use PatientChase for it’s label printing function – where users can automatically run off co-morbidity QOF target and chronic disease reminders onto labels. These then are matched with corresponding repeat prescriptions. No more manual writing on repeats? Correct!
To view a tutorial on how label printing works, right click over any of your searches and select ‘display popups…’. Then click the corresponding link ‘learn more…’
While independent to us, Control IT is a company which specialises in label printing solutions for GP surgeries. Brother label printers and consumables are held in stock. They provide a reliable service, competitive pricing and give 30 days credit terms to GP surgeries.
Their details can be found on their website.
Please quote ‘PatientChase’ when ordering.
www.control-it.uk.com
January 21, 2011
Happy New Year from all at PatientChase!
It’s the final quarter of the QOF year but there’s no need to panic if you still have numerous targets to achieve.
At this time of year many practices focus their patient recall on those patients who have still not come in for their QOF checks.
This is the perfect time to be using our ‘threshold search’ feature and/or the hotkeys in the search wizard.
Threshold button
At the click of a button PatientChase identifies all those patients who need to be recalled in order for you to achieve 100% across all thresholds.
All or any of this patient group can then be instantly mail merged.
This feature works brilliantly whatever method of recall you use at other times of the year. In fact, it can be used simultaneously with other recall methods, i.e. month of birth recall, QOF only recall, due diary date recall or opportunistic patient attendance.
Come the new QOF year in April, PatientChase’s flexibility means you can simply revert back to your existing recall method.
Click the big Threshold button at the top of the PatientChase screen to run the pre-built threshold search.
Should you wish to view a tutorial on how the threshold search works, simply click the ‘Learn more’ link that appears once you’ve clicked the button.
Hotkeys in the search wizard
Click on New Search and press either the r or b keys on your keyboard. This will group all your patients together across indicators where you have not yet achieved your targets.
r = red targets / below target
b = black / within 20%
January 5, 2011
Flu season is upon us and don’t forget PatientChase is excellent for recalling all those patients requiring a flu jub who have a chronic disease.
Whether they have a flu jab target in 1,2,3 or 4 disease areas, PatientChase can ensure their letter takes into account all the disease areas.
The label printing feature of PatientChase is also perfect for targeting patients coming in to pick up their repeats who also need a flu jab.
Click here for a tutorial on how to use label printing.
If you’d like help with any of the above, please call 0845 4025161.
September 13, 2010
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
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
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
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
June 12, 2010
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
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
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
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