Version 15.1

Release notes for V15.1.

Encounter Places

The availability of a multilevel hierarchical structure has been introduced to the Encounter Place reference table which means an encounter place can be recorded as a parent or a child of another encounter place. What this means is that you will be able to filter and report on groups of encounter places. For example, where a single physical clinic comprises more than one encounter place, an administrative encounter place can now be added to report on all the encounter places that 'belong' to that physical clinic.
  • An encounter place can be recorded as either an Administrative Encounter Place or a Service Encounter Place.
  • A Service Encounter Place can be a free standing encounter place or can be a child of an Administrative Encounter Place.
  • No activity can be recorded against an Administrative Encounter Place which will used primarily for management and reporting purposes.
  • Existing encounter places will be marked as Service Encounter Places so that there is no impact on the existing functionality.
  • Service or Administrative Encounter places cannot be deleted but can be disabled.

The encounter place hierarchical structure change has been applied to the Service Recording, Appointments Book and Investigation Results filters. Some reports have been modified to incorporate the new structure.

A new field "Establishment Code" also added to the Encounter Places.

Patient Biographics

The following new fields are added on the Social tab of the patient biographics window:
  • Interpreter Required - new fields on the Social tab to record whether a patient requires an interpreter or not and the interpreter language required.
  • Residential Status - a new field on the Social tab to record the Residential Status of a Patient.
  • NDIS Status - a new field on the Social tab to record the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) registration status of a patient.
  • Multiple Birth Indicator and Birth Order - new fields on the Social tab to record whether the patient was part of a multiple birth (Multiple Birth Indicator) and the patient's birth order if patient was part of a multiple birth (Birth Order).

Patient Search

  • IHI Number - a new field on the patient search window to allow searching for a patient against their IHI number.

There is a new System Parameter setting that allows a System Administration the ability to disable the automatic patient search option. There is a new System Parameter setting that gives a System Administration the ability to disable the phonetic patient search option.

Appointment Type

A new field has been added to the Appointment Details window to indicate the type of appointment it is, e.g. new or follow up.

Patient Summary Report

  • The data displayed in the Patient Summary Report can now be sorted by date in Ascending or Descending order (default is Descending).
  • Investigation Results can now be displayed in the Patient Summary Report.
  • The number of last investigation results to be included in the Patient Summary can be configured. By default, the last 5 investigations are included.
  • Saving of customised Patient Summary reports is now limited to users with Report Administration system rights.

Central Clinical Items and Qualifiers

There is now an Assessment;Kessler 5 (K5) clinical item to complement the K10.

A new clinical item SLK Generator introduces a new qualifier, Statistical Linkage Key (SLK-581), that will build the SLK with the click of a button. The SLK may be required for reporting to some funding bodies, especially for drug and alcohol and mental health programs.

The 'Peak flow' qualifier has been renamed 'PEF (peak expiratory flow)' and there are new qualifiers for 'FVC (forced vital capacity)', 'FEV1 (forced expiratory flow in 1 s)' and 'FEV1/FVC'. These are attached to ICPC clinical items of ICPC code R39 (e.g. 'Test;spirometry'). Also added are 'FVC (% predicted)', 'FEV1 (% predicted)' and 'FEV1/FVC' (% predicted)'.

Prescribing

On the Medication Summary window, the title of the column for medications that are prescribed elsewhere is changed to RxE from Rx Elsewhere and a legend is displayed at the bottom.

Adverse reactions

On the Main Summary window of the clinical record, under the Adverse Reaction Summary section, the following new fields have been added:
  • Assessment Date as an optional field. Assessment date is used to identify the most recent date that the patient was assessed for adverse reactions.
  • Severity can be recorded against each reaction manifestation.

Data Synchronisation

The following functions are not supported on offline clients:
  • Imprest Management functionality is disabled.
  • Adding, editing or deleting of Dispense, Supply and Administer records is disabled though users can view the existing records.
  • Adding or Editing of Verbal Orders is disabled though users can view existing verbal orders.
  • Private Billing is disabled.
  • Sending, replying or forwarding of Intramail is disabled though users can view existing Intramail.

User can, however, still add, edit or delete Adverse Reactions in an offline client.

Demo installation

The requirement for an activation code when installing the demo has been removed.

Features for Western Australian Country Health Service (WACHS)

  • System Module - A new system module has been introduced for WA Country Health Service - WACHS Features. All WACHS specific functionality will be controlled via this module (for example functionality to search for a patient in the DoH WA database using the HIH Service).
  • PAS Alerts - The alerts received from PAS via EMPI integration are displayed as read only text in the Main Summary of the clinical record.
  • Adverse reactions - On the Main Summary window of the clinical record, under the Adverse Reaction Summary section, the following new field has been added (also, see Adverse Reactions above): Assessment Status
  • New Kin Type functionality
    • Additional information can be recorded in the additional kin information area of the social tab in the patient biographics.
    • Emergency Contact information recorded in this area is copied automatically to the emergency contact fields.
  • Patient Merge / Unmerge
    • Patients can be unmerged if the WACHS module is enabled and the patient record has not been modified since the merge.
    • A new PatMergeUnmerge.exe allows patients to be merged / unmerged from a command line executable.
  • Incoming Referrals (Referrals Management) - The existing functionality of recording incoming referrals using clinical item is replaced with a dedicated enhanced incoming referrals functionality though outgoing referrals will continue to be recorded via a clinical item. The new incoming referrals functionality is controlled via the Referral Management system module. If the module is disabled, incoming referrals can be recorded via existing clinical items.
  • Billing - Communicare does have a comprehensive patient billing module but this has been disabled in version 15.1 as all CHIS patient billing will be managed by the WA Health Department Patient Billing Revenue Collection system. Users will be able to record billing details but submission of Medicare and patient claims (including generating invoices and receipts) and the Transaction History for private billing is disabled.

.Net Requirements

In order for Communicare to run .Net 4.5.2 or greater needs to be installed.