Patient Summary screen for smoking pet owners

OpenEMR Development
#1

Hi,
I want to move the smoking status field (tobacco) from the patient History summary to the Guardian demographics tab, since our patients (a veterinary clinic) do not smoke but the owners (Guardian) do. I changed the form_id column in the layout_options table manually from “HIS” to “DEM”. It used to work in 4.2.0 but not anymore in 5.0.0.
I get an SQL error saying :

 ERROR: insert failed: INSERT INTO patient_data SET pid = ' etc.etc.....
Error: Unknown column 'tobacco' in 'field list'
/var/www/openemr/library/patient.inc at 999:sqlInsert
/var/www/openemr/interface/new/new_comprehensive_save.php at 70:updatePatientData(1,Array,1)

Apparently I need to change something. I looked through these files if I could customize them, but have no idea where and what exactly. I’m a vet, not a developer (yet).

How can I do this? Is this easily done, or better leave the field where it is if code change is too complex…
thanks,
Roland, from Germany

OpenEMR for veterinary
#2

Hi @roland,

Two things:

  1. You can accomplish this by using Administration > Layout > Demographics. You can actually copy the way it is done in Administration > Layout > History and then remove that entry. I would not advise you to manually tweak the database or lists raw. Also, be careful and deliberate with the layout editor. I am the first one to admit that the feature is sometimes buggy and will require a good bit of patience and carefulness. Let me know if you need anything else!

  2. We, the OpenEMR community, are always looking for interesting stories about our users to post on here: http://www.open-emr.org/wiki/index.php?title=OpenEMR_Success_Stories - if you are able, can you provide me some background on your clinic? You’d be the first vet user and I think it would be great to shine a light on your unique use case! My email is matthewvita48 (at) gmail (dot) com! No pressure here!

Thanks,

Matthew Vita
OpenEMR Project Administrator

#3

Hi Matthew,

Thanks a lot for your fast answer. Problem solved, now the owner is smoking instead of the pet. I used the layout editor so much for all the customization I did. Why didn’t I think of this before? Maybe because I tried it at 3 am…

FYI your solution is included into the How To… I am writing for two classmates in my postg TCVM study so they or anyone interested can adapt OpenEMR for a vet clinic. Am I really the only one? Guess they just don’t realize one of the strengths of your program is customization…

thanks also for your email address, I will let you know when we made the switch from our proprietary system to OpenEMR (when 5.0.1 is there).

Thanks
Roland
P.S. Yes, I need more help. There are some very small issues/feature requests that i have, and one or two big ones (The Code System) that I haven’t figured out how to do, but I’ll first RTFM before posting them to the community.

1 Like
#4

Awesome! Looking forward to hearing back.

#5

Hi roland, I’m a Vet, I’d like to use openemr in my clinic. If you’ve made some changes in for vet, could you share it with me?
thanks

1 Like
#6

Just @-mentioning Roland to help out @jalea

@roland

#7

Hi jalea,
nice to see another vet here in the forum, thought I was the only one. I did not make ‘some’ changes, but a lot of 'em. I wrote everything down for 2 classmates at the university so they can use it too, but it is in German.
So the good news is it can be done (and once adapted it is equal or better than any vet software I’ve seen), the bad news is it requires a lot of late night typing, coffees and slices of pizza to get it ready.
Where are you, and what animals do you treat? We use it parallel to our proprietary software for small companion, farm animals, and camelids (with species-specific forms).
the possibilites are endless but so is the development work…
all the best
Roland

#8

Hi @roland , happy to hear from you. I’m from Argentina and the software we are using right now is quite awful and old, and we can’t make any customization. I work in a small animal clinic (%99 dogs and cats). When I saw all the open source web based software physician had (for human) I was quite jealous. I would like to make some changes for veterinary use so every vet could use it.

The main problems I see are:
-Pet Owner: could be solved using the Guardian layout as the owner (have you done the same?)
-Vaccine/Immunization reminders: I cannot find a list of vaccines expired so we could send an email o SMS reminder to the owner. This is the main problem I see because if we cannot send emails to the owner, I cannot use this software. (how do you solved this?)
thanks

#9

@MatthewVita,

thanks Matthew for the connection, now I don’t feel so lonely as the only vet in this forum any more

@jalea,
Hi Jalea,

  • Pet Owner: Yes, we use the Guardian layout as the owner too, in our version we moved around a lot of fields with the layout editor (go to Admin -> Layouts -> Edit layout Demographics). Don’t delete any fields, the layout editor is not too reliable, just move them in and out of groups. We reduced the Groups to 5 (Patient-Guardian-Location(for farm and field adresses etc.)-Misc-Choices. I just “recycled” all the fields and added some, so as not to change the database, and just relabeled them (ethnoracial to Species, and homeless to Wild/Stray animals just to name a few…).

  • Your problem with the Vaccine Reminders is easy to solve with the Clinical Decision Rule System, that’s how we did it. In it’s original state it produces hilarious results for animals (pap smear reminders for a 19 y.o. parrot, or influenza vaccination reminders for a horse that only start when he reached the age of 50, which he’ll never make…). So you need to change those, but with it you can send emails, and have active vaccination/ yearly checkup/ birthday reminders for your furry patients. There are two good short videos on the subject here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y3f5PaI_gJw and here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zpG3PlnnEPY
    and also a guide how to here : http://open-emr.org/wiki/images/c/ca/Clinical_Decision_Rules_Manual.pdf

Good luck, and feel free to contact me if you have more questions…
Roland

2 Likes
#10

ok, thanks @roland i’m gonna try that.
There is a way you could share with me what you’ve done (even though is in german).
I’m thinking if I made some changes in openemr and I can’t share/export easily with anyone it’d be frustrating.

thanks