doctorwho1979 wrote on Sunday, November 27, 2011:
Hi, I want to ask how to enable queue management system. In Malaysia the clinics are not appointment based. There are walk in clinic and is there are features to arrange patients according to number or arrival time.
thank you for a great software.
bradymiller wrote on Wednesday, November 30, 2011:
Hi,
Don’t think this feature yet exists, but sounds like it would be a nice feature (would require code development).
-brady
arnabnaha wrote on Wednesday, November 30, 2011:
In India also, we dont have appointment based clinics except few areas and with few doctors. Queue management system will be a great feature addon with openemr. It will make openemr more popular and definitely more useful for countries not having appointment based clinic. I am adding it in the feature request. Please somebody help with its development…
yehster wrote on Wednesday, November 30, 2011:
Arnab,
Can you describe your current workflow a little? Are you creating new patient entries constantly? Or do you see repeat patients frequently?
Are there typically a lot of patients waiting at any given time in your clinic?
I wonder if the message system would work at least in part for creating a queue. Maybe you are already doing something like that?
arnabnaha wrote on Wednesday, November 30, 2011:
Hi…kevin
The workflow is like this in my clinic in India…Currently, the patient arrives for follow up more than new patients. I get 10-15 new patients a day and the rest are follow up cases. Now they come and we have to write their names in a piece of paper as of now with their patient ID number (for follow up cases) and for new cases we just do the quick demographics and generate a new patient id number and write it there. Now according the arrival of the patient (first arrival first) will visit me and have the encounter done except if there is any emergency patient. In emergency i have to visit that patient first…
1. My receptionist enters the demographics data and the does the appointment for the incoming patients like above.
2. Next she sends the patients according to the arrival number to my room
3. I do the encounter and enter all the details of the encounter directly in the system
4. For new patients, as there is a quick demographic data done, i have to enter the rest of the data myself and do the encounter then.
What i was expecting is if there is a queue system, then we can manage the patients on the system and track the visits. In the present calendar, we cant list the patients according to their entry into the clinic. Can you help??
yehster wrote on Wednesday, November 30, 2011:
Arnab,
Does your clinic use the Encounter Form (either create visit in the left nav, or New Encounter in the drop down.)
If so, do you create it or does the receptionist do it?
Are there other staff in your clinic? Other Physicians? Does there need to be either multiple queues for different providers, or possibly a single queue that multiple providers work from? (of course your case may vary from the best general solution).
Here’s what I’m thinking. Time of “arrival” could be tracked in the date field of form_encounter.
The current encounter form doesn’t set a specific time of day in the date field it gets zeroed out to midnight right now. We could change that such that it stores the exact time of entry.
So, after the receptionist enters the basic demographic information (or finds the existing patient), the receptionist then hits new encounter in the drop down and hits save.
At this point we’d need to build a new webpage which would basically be a list of encounters in reverse chronological order. For your clinic, perhaps we would replace the calendar link with this queue.
arnabnaha wrote on Wednesday, November 30, 2011:
Hi…
Yes…my clinic uses the encounter form very heavily…the chief complaints are stored there and later copied to the chief complaint section of the history form made by me usin layout based form as xmlformgenerator has a bug. neways, coming to the point… yes i use the encounter form from the dropdown menu. Presently there are no other physicians and i am the only one. but will like to keep things open for general use too and for the future too. currently a single queue will be fine but if there are multiple physicians, then multiple queues will be the best option… I love your thought but there is a small problem i want the calendar to be persisting. donot replace the calendar… sometimes there are appointments too…like a home visit may be…in that case the calendar really helps a lot.
Thank you
paradocs wrote on Wednesday, November 30, 2011:
Greeting all,
This may be an inelegant work around but may
be used without a lot of programming.
Administrator -> Globals -> Calendar
Calendar Starting Hour 1AM
Calendar Ending Hour 11AM
-> Save
Now you must change an entry directly in the
database since the Calendar interval can not
be 1. (perhaps a real developer could change this.)
Administration -> Other -> Database ->
pick your database openemr likely ->
open globals -> Browse (tab if needed) ->
Page Number: Page 3 ->
check the second box calendar_interval ->
go to the bottom and pick the pencil ->
enter 1 in the bottom box gl_value -> go
Now you have 59 positions in 11 cycles.
Consider these sequence numbers, not times.
If you wish to add an actual time you may
do so in the in the comment section and see
it when you hover over the sequence number.
Warning: I do not know if other things depend on the
time so hopefully the developers will warn you if
this idea is bad.
Best Wishes
paradocs
paradocs wrote on Wednesday, November 30, 2011:
Hi.
Additionally set the duration to 1 minute.
If one is late or does not answer
they may be moved to a empty
place higher on the queue.
I am sorry to confess that at busy
spells my appointment times
become more of a queue.
Best Wishes
paradocs
juggernautsei wrote on Sunday, June 03, 2012:
Hi,
I know a group that has develeoped a queue based system for the OpenEMR plateform.
Check it out at www.theloopq.com. Also, have added the capability of saving encounter forms to patient accounts and an Anoto digital pen feature that automatically reads what is written on the encounter forms when docked.
Sherwin