Version 18.1

Release notes for V18.1.

Clinical Record

  • The Medication Summary tab on the Summary tab of the Clinical Record now has an icon that changes according to the content of the Medication Summary. If there are no medications on this tab then the icon has a white background . If there are records on the tab and there are expired regular medications then the icon has a red background . If there are medications on the tab but no expired regular medications then the icon has a green background .
  • Recall expiry - this functionality can now be configured for specific clinical item types only. If no types are allowed then the functionality is effectively disabled. Where a recall rule has previously specified this functionality then the clinical item will inherit this behaviour. See Clinical Item Type Properties for details.
  • The cursor flickering encountered in version 15.0 when the mouse was above the progress notes has been addressed.
  • The cursor position and scroll bar position are now retained when adding clinical items from the Progress Notes tab and when switching services within this tab.
  • Double-clicking the Add Investigation Request button in the clinical record no longer presents an error message.
  • The issue that sometimes caused Progress Notes filtering to reset in some situations has been resolved.
  • An issue with progress notes that arose when merging two patient records with the source patient's clinical record still open has been resolved.
  • When selecting the Edit Investigation Request option for an investigation result in the Detail tab that has no request then a message is displayed as 'There is no request for this result'.

Central Data

  • The adult and over-55s Aboriginal health checks now contain the alcohol AUDIT-C qualifiers to allow the audit to be completed as part of the annual health assessment.
  • There are four new i-STAT items available with the Communicare Value-added dataset which can record results from the CG4+, CHEM8+, INR and Troponin i-STAT machines.

E-Health

Medications dispensed, administered or supplied now show as such clearly in progress notes uploaded to MyHR (such actions are now documented with the prefix of <Dispense>, <Supply> or <Administer>).

Prescribing

  • Lengthy approved indications are trimmed automatically to fit on a script. There is an option to expand the description if required. Note that if there is more than one streamlined authority number then the text is not trimmed until one streamlined authority number is selected.
  • A prescriber can now decide to print labels even after a prescription has been printed.
  • Drug interaction warnings are now not repeated when generating a new Health Centre Prescription. Previously, interactions between drug A and drug B were repeated as interactions between drug B and drug A.
  • The prompt to regenerate the Health Centre Prescription on closing the clinical record, if the user stopped or deleted any regular medications.
  • Prescribers can now review verbal orders for expired medications from Details tab in the Clinical Record.

Medications Management

  • The requirement to enter initials when adding a new dispense, supply or administer has been removed. This is now optional but the username of the person creating the record will now be shown.
  • When dispensing and administering, the comment field will now appear in the progress note.
  • Extemporaneous preparations cannot be included in Imprest lists. Previously an error was displayed when a user attempted to do this.
  • The standard generic dispense label used with Medications Management has been modified to satisfy all the Poisons Regulations requirements.

Report Scheduling

Report scheduling functionality has now been extended to support secure delivery by Argus. The maintenance window at Tools > Scheduled Reports has been improved to facilitate this.

Note: Administrators - Reports scheduled for delivery to Communicare Support have been disabled in this release as this e-mail address is no longer monitored. Note also that some databases are using unsecured_email@amnet.net.au (server at mail.amnet.net.au) to schedule reports - this e-mail address should not be used as it was intended for demonstration purposes only. Please check File > Reference Tables > Organisation Maintenance (Email Server tab) and if you wish to continue to send scheduled reports replace the details with an internal e-mail address provided by your organisation. In due course this e-mail address will expire and scheduled reports using this address will cease.

Offline Client

The Offline (Data Synchronisation) Client now displays the date and time of the last upload and last download on:
  • the Splash Screen
  • the Login Screen
  • the Main Communicare Toolbar

Patient Biographics

  • On the Patient Search window, the Invalid Medicare Number icon is not displayed for deceased patients when the filter allows deceased patients to be shown.
  • The Patient Alert popup note will now preserve any formatting of text when editing from outside the Biographics window.

Service Recording

  • The Service Recording window will now remember each user's tab selection (Detail, Providers, Medicare, Private or Requirements), even after the user has logged off.
  • The Service Recording window can now be ordered by the Requirements column if required.

Appointments

  • The requirement to enter initials when adding a new appointment has been removed. This is now optional but the username of the person creating the appointment will now be shown.
  • Patients can now be checked in when they arrive from the Appointments Book window.
  • When adding a new session to the Appointments Book the default ordering is now the provider name, although all columns can be ordered (e.g. session type, start time, facility, etc.

Reference Tables

Reference tables that allowed deletion prior to version 15.0 now allow such deletion (if it has not been used or if it does not relate to patient data), such as keywords for clinical items and investigation request terms.
  • Three new fields can be have been added to the Provider window: Indigenous Status, Date of Birth, Cultural Awareness Training Given
  • The Provider reference table now shows the logon user name in the grid and, when ordered by this column, the Locate box can be used to search for a provider by their logon user name.
  • Only encounter places with enabled modes are visible in the Ix Claimant grid for recording provider numbers on the Provider reference table.
  • There is now a free text area for each provider to record notes relevant to that provider on the Provider reference table.
  • The ability to add keywords to clinical item groups has been restored - see File | Reference Tables | Clinical Item Group Keywords.
  • Certificates Store issues - some small inconsistencies when entering incorrect passwords have been resolved.
  • Some changes of Value Type, Aboriginality and Gender are now allowed when editing a qualifier type on the Qualifier Type reference table (for example, changing a Checkbox to a Yes/No type is now allowed and removing Aboriginality and Gender limitations is allowed).
  • Long qualifier descriptions no longer overwrite the Max Value text box in the Qualifier Types reference table.
  • There is now a search box on the Groups tab of the Clinical Item Types reference table to allow easy addition of groups associated with a clinical item type.

Address Book

Both the Address Book Search and Address Book Maintenance windows now show the Comments field in the grid. This will allow address book entries to be 'flagged' with useful information for providers searching for suitable recipients for referrals, for example.

Intramail

If an Intramail recipient is absent (recorded at File > Reference Tables > Appointments > Appointments > Provider Planned Absences), then the sender will see an alert message with the details of absent recipients as soon as they send the message.

The label on the main toolbar that shows unread messages now shows in red and bold if there are any.

Billing

  • Users with no Billing rights will be able to change the Claim Type (Medicare or Private) and be able to select items for a service. This behaviour is now consistent with the earlier behaviour of Electronic Claims (bulk billing). Such users cannot generate invoices or claim for the service, neither can they accept payment.
  • The Amount Claimed is no longer removed when a Medicare item is deselected from the Medicare claim tab.
  • The Claims (MBS Items History) button now shows the MBS group as well as the MBS item to allow sorting by type of claim as well as specific item.

Transport Management

  • The requirement to enter initials when adding a new transport booking has been removed. This is now optional but the username of the person creating the transport requirement will now be shown.
  • There is now a driver selection dropdown box on the Transport Management window's Print Transport List button. This will allow drivers to print only their list easily, without having to go through the reports menu.

Documents and Results

  • The action of reviewing an investigation result from the Documents and Results window now creates content in the progress note when the administration service is created. Previously, empty progress notes were created.
  • From the Documents and Results window, when attaching or scanning a document, the Add Recall button is disabled until the document is reviewed.
  • Re-sizing columns in the Documents and Results window has been made easier.
  • An issue that prevented some incoming document types, particularly discharge referrals, from being manually matched to a patient has been resolved.

System Parameters

The Name of Practice field in Organisation Parameters has been extended from 40 characters to 200 characters. This will allow health service names that have previously been abbreviated to now reflect the full name.

.Net Requirements

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