An issue I have tackled in several PrimeSUITE installations is the slow degradation in performance of the Past Medical History wizard on the facesheet. In each situation the issue came down a few common issues: 1) limited understanding of how entries can be added to the list and 2) not having a superuser trained and assigned to maintain the entries.
The Past Medical History (PMHx) wizard is accessed from the facesheet and contains a categorized listing of many possible problems that patients may have experienced that are important to note for future care. Beyond the stock categories you can also add custom categories for staff use. In many instances I have seen a top-level category created as a "happy place" to quickly access entries that are most common for a particular practice.
However, unless staff are trained to do otherwise, the top category folder can be inundated with entries that are added through the Assessment section of a note.
Example:
If staff add an Assessment to the patients Past Medical History from a template and do not change the category then it defaults to the top category in the PMHx wizard. If this is your favorites folder the entries will build up and slowly degrade in performance as the speed of the category loading is directly tied to the number of entries in the list. A designated superuser would then need to go in and periodically clean manually added entries out.
As an alternative to this method. Sites I maintain are being redesigned with a new structure. We have created a new top category called DO NOT USE (insert your own preferred name) and have our favorites folder located second in the list. Our favorites folder includes entries that match possible answers from our patient intake list.
Now when staff are working in a template and add to the users Past Medical History from the Assessment screen the entries are dropped into the new top level category.
Example:
At this point, IT or a designated user can open a test chart, access the PHMx wizard and the top level category and remove entries that have built up since the last purging. With frequent purging, the wizard opens quickly and opening the favorites category opens quickly as well.
Our PMHx wizard went from opening in about 15-20 seconds down to 2 seconds.
The Past Medical History (PMHx) wizard is accessed from the facesheet and contains a categorized listing of many possible problems that patients may have experienced that are important to note for future care. Beyond the stock categories you can also add custom categories for staff use. In many instances I have seen a top-level category created as a "happy place" to quickly access entries that are most common for a particular practice.
However, unless staff are trained to do otherwise, the top category folder can be inundated with entries that are added through the Assessment section of a note.
Example:
If staff add an Assessment to the patients Past Medical History from a template and do not change the category then it defaults to the top category in the PMHx wizard. If this is your favorites folder the entries will build up and slowly degrade in performance as the speed of the category loading is directly tied to the number of entries in the list. A designated superuser would then need to go in and periodically clean manually added entries out.
As an alternative to this method. Sites I maintain are being redesigned with a new structure. We have created a new top category called DO NOT USE (insert your own preferred name) and have our favorites folder located second in the list. Our favorites folder includes entries that match possible answers from our patient intake list.
Now when staff are working in a template and add to the users Past Medical History from the Assessment screen the entries are dropped into the new top level category.
Example:
At this point, IT or a designated user can open a test chart, access the PHMx wizard and the top level category and remove entries that have built up since the last purging. With frequent purging, the wizard opens quickly and opening the favorites category opens quickly as well.
Our PMHx wizard went from opening in about 15-20 seconds down to 2 seconds.
