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Administration
Communicare Administrators can tune the way in which Communicare works at your health clinic using the configuration, tools and task information.
System Administration
Reference Tables
Qualifier Types
Qualifiers add additional meaning to a Clinical Item Type, for example to add observations, dates and to request investigations.
Dropdown List Qualifiers
List items can be enabled and disabled, which allows records of historical item selection to be maintained, while not offering these historical items for future selection.

Administration
Communicare Administrators can tune the way in which Communicare works at your health clinic using the configuration, tools and task information.
- System Administration
  - System Parameters
    If you belong to the System Administrators user group, you can configure Communicare by setting system parameters.
  - Organisation Maintenance
    Configure Communicare for your organisation by setting organisation parameters. Changes to organisation parameters affect the Communicare system for the organisation and all workstations.
  - User Groups
    Users of the Communicare system are organised into groups. Rights to access various parts of Communicare are given to these groups of users.
  - Address Book
    The address book stores local address book entries and address book entries that are linked to external directory services.
  - Reference Tables
    - Certificates Maintenance
      The Certificates Maintenance window lists all of the currently installed certificates that can be used in various places in Communicare.
    - Appointment Facility
    - Requirements
    - Public Holidays
      Public holidays identify normal working days (or part days) that the practice will be closed.
    - MIMS Database Import
      If your site uses the Prescribing Full or Prescribing Once off/short course module, Adverse Reactions or browsing MIMS drug database, update MIMs monthly.
    - Formularies
      Use the Formulary Maintenance window to manage medication lists or formularies.
    - Locality
      The Locality reference table is a list of places used in patient addresses. It is initially populated with over 14,000 localities used by Australia Post when your Communicare server is installed.
    - Patient Skin
    - Patient Group Maintenance
    - Encounter Place
      An encounter place can take one of two forms.
    - Text Shortcuts
      Add or modify the text shortcuts for commonly used blocks of text available in Communicare. Text shortcuts can be used by clinicians in progress notes and letters.
    - Dosage instructions
      Use the Dosage Instruction window to review abbreviations or short codes for use when prescribing and add new abbreviations.
    - Medicare Benefits Schedule Shortlist
      Because the Medicare Benefits Schedule (MBS) is so big, you can control the order in which Medicare Benefits Schedule (MBS) items are displayed in Communicare and add short descriptions that are meaningful to your context.
    - Private Billing
    - Investigations
      Investigations can be requested by a provider from within a patient's clinical record. Use the Investigation reference table to define investigations.
    - Clinical Item Type
      A clinical item type is a predefined value that a clinical item for a patient can take.
    - Qualifier Types
      Qualifiers add additional meaning to a Clinical Item Type, for example to add observations, dates and to request investigations.
      - Create and Edit Qualifiers
        You can add qualifiers to one or multiple clinical items, clone qualifiers, edit qualifiers and remove them from clinical items if required.
      - Dropdown List Qualifiers
        List items can be enabled and disabled, which allows records of historical item selection to be maintained, while not offering these historical items for future selection.
      - Clinical Items with Calculated Qualifiers
        To build a clinical item that has qualifiers which will automatically calculate a result, the question and value qualifiers must be structured so that the Communicare team can write the calculated qualifiers.
    - Special Lookup Table Maintenance
    - Transport Mode
    - Chart Types
    - Viewing Rights
      Viewing Rights define access levels to clinical data. The rights themselves are maintained by the Viewing Rights Maintenance program.
    - SNOMED CT Import
      Communicare uses SNOMED CT-AU terminology to capture clinical data.
    - Reference Table Codes
      Communicare reference tables use a variety of codes to identify and manage clinical data.
  - Appointment Session Templates
    Appointment Session Templates identify when appointments can be made, in a general way. They are used as a template for creating the sessions into which appointments are actually booked.
  - Reference Tables
  - Providers
    The Providers window lists clinicians who have been added to Communicare as providers at your health service.
  - Medicare Number Import
    Patient Medicare numbers can be imported directly from files provided by Medicare Australia.
  - Patient Import
  - Communicare Security
  - Daily Process Service
  - Automatic Patient Status Change
  - Terminal Server and Communicare
    The Communicare client can be installed on a Terminal Server.
  - Backup Regimes
    Backups of your Communicare database are critical for business continuity in the event of a disaster. Communicare is automatically backed up to the server nightly. Your site should take regular backups of these backups.
  - Disaster Recovery
    In the event of disaster, call Communicare Support on 1800 798 441 and follow these steps to recover your data.
  - File Transfer
    Communicare demos and updates are available from the Communicare User Portal - Help and Support tab.
  - Firewall Configuration
  - Upgrades
    Communicare upgrades are performed remotely by Communicare Support at a time arranged with the system administrator.
  - Database Connection Settings
  - Central Data Update
    This program allows a specific set of Clinical Item definitions to be centrally maintained and distributed to user sites by Communicare. These centrally maintained Clinical Item definitions are referred to as central items.
  - Terms Conversion
    Together with your Implementation Consultant, when your site goes live with Communicare, a clinician with Administrator user privileges can use the Terms Converter tool to convert local terms into centrally maintained terms, for example, ICPC-2 PLUS terms.
  - CAT Export Tool
    Use the CAT Export Tool to export datasets defined by the Improvement Foundation, from Communicare as XML.
  - Background Processes
    Communicare runs a number of server-side background processes that integrate with various external services.
- Tools
  Use these tools to help manage Communicare.
- Regular Administrator Tasks
  There are several regular maintenance tasks for the Communicare Administrator to perform.

Dropdown List Qualifiers

List items can be enabled and disabled, which allows records of historical item selection to be maintained, while not offering these historical items for future selection.

List items can be enabled and disabled as many times as necessary. By default, new dropdown items are enabled when inserted.

Additional Text

If a dropdown list item has its 'Additional Text' box ticked, this means that when it is selected, the user will have the option to supply additional information. This is of use if none of the other items on the dropdown are appropriate. For example, an item of 'Other' could be available from the dropdown, and when selected it would allow for a more appropriate value to be specified.

Colour Coding

In both the Qualifier Type Maintenance and Qualifier Type Properties windows, disabled dropdown items appear greyed-out in the grids.

Relationship to Clinical Items

When a dropdown qualifier has been linked to a clinical item, the following behaviour occurs:

If the clinical item is added, only enabled list items will be available for selection. Disabled items are hidden from the list.
If a previously-inserted clinical item is edited, and a disabled list item is currently selected, this selection will be maintained (all other disabled items will be hidden, however). If another item is selected and this selection is saved, the disabled item will no longer appear in the list.
If an item selected from the dropdown qualifies for additional text, then at the point of selection a text box will appear below the dropdown with the label 'Please specify'. This field is optional and will allow the user to give more information if appropriate. If another item which does not qualify for additional text is subsequently selected, the label and text box will be hidden again, and any text that had been entered in the text box deleted.

Reporting

The report Reference Tables > Clinical Item Type Details will not display disabled list items which are linked to the clinical item type.

14 November 2023