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Encounters
Open a service recording for patient interactions and add clinical items, record progress notes, prescribe medications, review investigations, write referrals and manage recalls.
Encounters
Record patient encounters in Communicare using any one of the following methods.
Clinical Records
The clinical record comprises all clinical information recorded for a patient in Communicare by your health service. It includes clinical items and recalls.
Progress Notes
Progress Notes are available for all providers for each service.
Text Shortcuts
Use text shortcuts to improve efficiency when writing progress notes or letters for commonly used blocks of text.

Encounters
Open a service recording for patient interactions and add clinical items, record progress notes, prescribe medications, review investigations, write referrals and manage recalls.
- Encounters
  Record patient encounters in Communicare using any one of the following methods.
  - Service Recording
    In Communicare, a service is where a patient interacts with a service provider. In general, it means to have a consultation with a health care provider, that is, a Doctor, Nurse, or Healthworker.
  - Clinical Records
    The clinical record comprises all clinical information recorded for a patient in Communicare by your health service. It includes clinical items and recalls.
    - Action required banner
    - Summary tab
      The summary tab contains a summary of the patient's clinical record. Which panes are visible depends on which System Parameters have been set.
    - Progress Notes
      Progress Notes are available for all providers for each service.
      - Reasons For Visit
        Your health service may require you to record one or more reasons for a patient's visit in their clinical record. The reason for the patient's visit may be added manually or automatically.
      - Changing a Progress Note
      - Text Shortcuts
        Use text shortcuts to improve efficiency when writing progress notes or letters for commonly used blocks of text.
      - View Progress Notes for Service
    - Detail tab
      The Detail tab displays the clinical items and clinical data that make up a patient's clinical record. The content displayed depends on the type of clinical item or data. Investigations and medications are also listed.
    - Clinical items
      A clinical item is the basic element of a clinical record. Clinical items are included in Communicare by default, but can be customised for your health service.
    - Clinical Terms Browser
      The Clinical Terms Browser is displayed each time you need to select a Clinical Item Type.
    - Episode
    - Qualifier edit panes
      In the clinical item, set or change the values of qualifiers associated with that clinical item in the qualifier edit panes.
    - Add drawings to clinical items
      Use drawing qualifiers in clinical items to more accurately display conditions or procedures on preset clinical images.
    - Special Qualifiers
      Special qualifiers include calculating qualifiers, HL7 qualifiers, required qualifiers, qualifiers with a range and qualifiers linked to system codes.
    - Referral Status
      A referral might have one of these statuses.
    - Finding Hidden Windows
    - Data Entry Wizard
- Medications
  This topic covers all Medications Management functionality within Communicare.
- Clinical Support

Text Shortcuts

Use text shortcuts to improve efficiency when writing progress notes or letters for commonly used blocks of text.

Shortcuts are specific to your health service and are maintained in the File > Reference Tables > Text Shortcuts.

To use a text shortcut:

In a free text progress note or letter, type the shortcut text, making sure the shortcut word is separate from the text around it, using either a space in front of the shortcut or entering it on its own line). For example, .hx for History or .soap for S O A P.
Once you have typed the shortcut, press Space or Enter after the shortcut to expand the shortcut to the configured text. For example:

14 November 2023