Allow more than one person to access patient record at a time

[matt_ackerman]

In PracticeWorks, allow more than one member of staff to access a patient's record at one time and not have it lock the record. i.e. back office enter charting while front office checks insurance information.

• "This is very important! If there was one thing I could have differently, it just might be this. I would love to be able to write my notes in a patients chart clinically and have front desk be able to check out the patient. We often have to go around and find why a chart is "locking up" because someone else has it open"
• "You CAN do this! If while you are charting the patient, looking up x-rays etc the front desk may check the patient out. As you are looking at the charting module there is a little button that says "suspend". If you click on the suspend button, it will allow you to continue charting etc while the front desk checks the patient out. This is NOT the suspend button that is in the ledger. Also, if you want access to xrays while the front desk is trying to check the patient out, you can go through the "back door" by the patients clipboard and clicking on imaging. It will bring up the xrays without having to be out of the charting module."
• "This would be extremely helpful for many reasons: one being able to access insurance information if a call needed to be made while in the chair, second to be able to propose a treatment plan and have it ready for the patient when the back office brings pt up front."
• "At least allow to 'View Only' Don't necessarily need to change."
• "This is a very frustrating issue especially when you are chartless with a large office. It is not reasonable to be unable to schedule the patient (we are a pedo office) at the front desk while the pt. is in chair receiving treatment. It is not an option to have the dr's suspend the chart in the middle of treatment. It is then frustrating that it locks up your computer and you either have to do a ctrl alt delete to close out or wait it out. There should be a cancel button. The dr's also get irritated when we are in their clipboards updating insurance or talking balance and they can not access the chart to get working on the patient."
• "A read-only function would be much more helpful than "suspend." When the patient is in the clinic, the clinical staff needs to use the chart. "Suspend" requires front office staff to go to the back and interrupt the clinical staff to request this. That is disruptive. We should be able to at least look up various data from the front when the patient is in a clinical appointment."
• "YES a "read only" fcn would be very helpful. This problem of only 1 person allowed in a chart at a time is a real deal breaker - if it wasn't such a hassle to change software again we would be ;( The "suspend" only helps if every staff member is in agreement to do this immediately after accessing the patient and any info they need. This is really frustrating for Dr as well since he likes to see what he is going to do on any patient in the schedule at any given moment or to ck a patient's blood pressure before he comes to hygiene, etc. PLEASE address this issue - many thanks!"
• "Our Doctor likes to prepare for each patient visit in her office at her desk before she walks into a patient operatory. We don't understand how a Doctor is supposed to review the treatment plan of 'outstanding treatment' before they go into the patient hygiene or treatment room when she can't even open the patient chart. Dr. also can not double click on an appointment to see what treatment she is doing on a patient before she walks into a treatment room. In addition, Doctor looks at X-rays before doing Hygiene exam and would like to be able to document decay or other diagnosis on the hard tissue tab while she is reviewing X-rays because they hygienist might have the chart open to perio chart or make notes. Nor can she look at the medical history before walking in to do an exam or treatment. This is EXTREMELY problematic."

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[gmrdmd]

The fact is your competition such as dentrix and eagle soft allow more than one person at a time in the chart. As long as both computers are not accessing the exact same item there is no reason not to. 

[johnlynchoffice]

This is such a problem in our office.   I am at the front desk often having to be in a family file and the back office cannot access the patients chart, ETC.  It is so very annoying and a big problem. Again something we have been asking for a resolve to for quite a while.

[ks3m]

This is a huge problem in our office and an extremely frustrating one.  There are occasions that the patient has been dismissed from clinical treatment but I'm not yet able to access their information or schedule future appointments when they arrive at the front desk.  We don't have the extra treatment rooms to keep a patient seated until all chart notes are completed.  I feel as though we're always in a rush to either get into the software or finish in it for another team member to have access.  

[matt_ackerman]

I realize that it was mentioned in the body of the request above, but here would be a good place to mention the Suspend button.  In many cases this can be a helpful way to enable more people to access the chart.  I realize it may not benefit every situation.

[johnlynchoffice]

What is the Suspend button?

[jdowner]

Hello Tammy ()

The suspend button is inside of the charting module on the mid-right side, just beside the close chart button, above the print button. It will only show if the chart was opened from an appointment that is scheduled for "today" (today being the current date at the time) And prior to the appointment being checked out. Once it is checked out the suspend button will no longer show on the chart for that patient.

Location of Suspend button on chart

• Clicking the Suspend button temporarily puts the Chart "on hold," which allows other users (such as the Front Desk) to access the Patient's Account without receiving a Record Lock error.
• Clicking the Resume button returns total control of the Patient's records to the user who is in Charting, so that the fine details of their Hard/Soft Tissue and their Progress Notes may be completed as desired.

When you click suspend it will give you a warning about the nature of suspending the chart.

Suspend button warning

**I am unable to insert images into the post at this time so I uploaded screen shots to imgur and linked them here so you can see them.

[johnlynchoffice]

Thank you for the response. I just check the chart from a patient for today and there is no suspend button. I think maybe because you use Practice Works and we use Softdent. I checked all of the icons on the chart.

[jdowner]

ahh yes. the original poll/question presented here is in the PracticeWorks forum, not the Softdent forum. so these answers are directed only for PracticeWorks users

[matt_ackerman]

Tammy,

There is a current initiative underway with the SoftDent R&D team to reduce the impact of file-record locking (among other things), which should provide you some relief.  Keep an eye on the SoftDent community for more information!