Patient Flow

[aossi]

The new version of Orthotrac only allows you to open patient flow once.  I have a question for doctors and the administrator about how does everyone manage their practice in the clinic if they have no idea who is in the reception room.  The old version allowed you to open patient flow twice which we would have the patient chart on one side of the screen and patient flow on the other.  I personally can run my practice better if I know who is in the reception room so I know  if I need to pick up the pace in the clinic or if I have time to do an extra procedure.  The new version does not allow you to open patient flow twice. Once you drag a patient to their chair and the chart opens, the only way to see patient flow is to launch it again.  Seems to be very cumbersome.  Are there any other options?

[Anon · Accepted solution]

Good afternoon Dr. Ossi  ( @aossi ),

Although prior versions of OrthoTrac did allow you to open multiple instances of Patient Flow on a given workstation, this functionality was removed with version 14.3  because it was found to be causing performance issues on client servers and networks -- the more instances of Patient Flow that were opened on a given PC, the more performance was affected.  Warning clients about this turned out to be ineffective, so the decision was made to disable the functionality to improve performance across the board. 

Most offices who need to quickly switch back to Patient Flow but don't want to click the Patient Flow icon in the system tray to reactivate it will use the ALT-TAB keyboard combination to quickly switch between various windows.  I would recommend using that for faster navigation. 

Regards,

Phil Carter / OrthoTrac Escalation

[aossi]

Hello Phil

Is it possible to make a request to have patient flow opened twice on a monitor?  You mentioned the problems with doing this, but I really do need this option for my practice to run smoothly.  In the example below patient flow on the left is for opening patient charts while patient flow on the right is for all staff members to make sure we are seating patients on time. This convenience is lost if we have to minimize and restore patient flow every time we want to view it.  If its not possible to add it,  can I stay with version 12.4 or will I eventually be forced to change versions?  Thank you for your time.

[Anon]

Good day Dr. Ossi ( @aossi ), 

It is unlikely that this feature will be restored in later versions since, as I mentioned, it is known to cause performance issues.  You are certainly free to post a request in the Product Ideas section of our site.

The Product Ideas section can be reached by clicking the Practice Management pull-down on the toolbar at the top, then selecting "Product Ideas" at the bottom. A direct link is also available here:

https://community.carestreamdental.com/t5/PRODUCT-IDEAS/idb-p/practicemanagementideas

The Product Ideas section is closely monitored by management and popular ideas can also be voted on by the community.

Regarding your question about version 12.4:  as of right now there are no plans to "force" all users to update.  It is true that we have had a company-wide initiative encouraging offices to update to the latest version, but that is mostly because the more recent versions contain a host of enhancements and bug fixes for issues reported in previous versions. If version 12.4 suits your needs currently, then you are free to stay on that version. Just be aware that there may be known defects in that version that are resolved in later versions of OT. 

Also, while I appreciate you posting the picture, I have removed it from your original post because the visible patient names may be a violation of HIPAA. 

Regards,

Phil Carter / OrthoTrac Escalations

[aossi]

Phil

Thank you for the response.  This is a difficult change for me personally and being that I am probably alone with this concern,  its probably not going to be added back, especially if there is a performance problem.  Typically when I am in the clinic working on a patient with my gloves on,  I am constantly looking back at the monitor to see how I am doing on time.  This convenience is lost if I have to remove my gloves or ask someone to pull up patient flow every time I need to see it.   

[paularyfa]

We leave patient flow open on the clinic workstations and simply minimize it when we need to make a note in a patient's chart.  There are occasions when we leave it up on one clinic laptop for reference and use the other laptops for notes, etc.  Hope this helps.