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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.
Clinical Support
Investigations and documents
Communicare receives pathology and imaging results, letters and other documents electronically and sends documents and letters electronically using HL7 messages.
Documents
Documents can be received from external sources, sent from Communicare or added to Communicare.
EPD address book
The EPD address book was replaced in Communicare V22.2 by the combined address book to support searching the local address book and online provider directories simultaneously, and secure message exchange.
Address Book Search
The Address Book Search window is displayed whenever you need to add an addressee.

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.
- Medications
  This topic covers all Medications Management functionality within Communicare.
- Clinical Support
  - Investigations and documents
    Communicare receives pathology and imaging results, letters and other documents electronically and sends documents and letters electronically using HL7 messages.
    - Documents and results summary
      Use the Documents and Results window to display internal, incoming and outgoing documents and incoming results for any patient at your service.
    - Investigations
    - Documents
      Documents can be received from external sources, sent from Communicare or added to Communicare.
      - Read-only documents
        Read-only documents in Communicare cannot be modified under any circumstances.
      - Add documents
        Documents are the electronic reflection of printed material that is important enough to be recorded in the patient's file. Only add documents to Communicare that cannot be encoded using normal clinical items.
      - Send documents
        Using Communicare you can send documents electronically.
      - Receive documents
        Using Communicare you can receive documents electronically.
      - Delete documents
        Use the Browse Documents window to delete documents.
      - Clinical Document Architecture (CDA)
        Communicare can send and receive CDA documents.
      - Combined Address Book
        The combined address book stores local address book entries and allows you to search multiple, online provider directories.
      - EPD address book
        The EPD address book was replaced in Communicare V22.2 by the combined address book to support searching the local address book and online provider directories simultaneously, and secure message exchange.
        Address Book Entry
        Use the Address Book Entry window to maintain the details of people, organisations and places.
        Address Book Search
        The Address Book Search window is displayed whenever you need to add an addressee.
        Enterprise Provider Directory
        The FHIR STU3 instance of the Argus directory (Enterprise Provider Directory (EPD)) is a central directory available online for searching through registered medical sites, services and practitioners.
      - Secure Messaging
        Secure Message Delivery (SMD) is the government standard for sending medical documents and messages securely and safely.
  - Referral Management
    Manage incoming internal and external referrals from a single list.
  - Birth Notifications
    For customers who belong to the Western Australian Country Health Service, use the Birth Notifications module to manage notifications related to births from a single list.
  - Recalls
    Recalls are the elements that make up a care plan. Recalls can be either generated automatically by Communicare or manually created by the user.
  - Datasets
    Datasets are a user-friendly coding system, giving health professionals a standardised way to record data and report on data entered in a patient’s clinical record.

Address Book Search

The Address Book Search window is displayed whenever you need to add an addressee.

For example, from a patient's clinical record, you might add a referral to an oral surgeon at a hospital and use the Address Book Search to find the hospital and surgeon. The addressees details are included in the letter or eReferral automatically, or you may change those details before sending or printing.

To search the address book:

Select Tools > Address Book Search or an addressee field, such as Organisation in a referral clinical item, or To in a letter.
In the Address Book Search window, set either Search Local Address Book or Search EPD, depending on whether the contact you want is included in your local address book.
To enhance your search, set the following options:
- Set Search automatically to search as you type, rather than entering a search, then clicking Search Now.
- Set Phonetic search to use values entered in the Name field phonetically. For example, Rugr or Rgr will find Roger.
Enter your search criteria in any of the following fields:
- Surname to search for an individual
- Organisation to search for an organisation
- Provider Number to search using provider number. There is no column for the provider number, it is displayed in the lower pane.
- Speciality, Department or Locality
- If Search EPD is set, also search by Language, Speciality, or Gender.
If required, limit the search to a service type such as Pathology.
Click Search Now or Select Addresses depending on the context of the search.

The addressee information is added to your letter, referral or so on.

The Address Book Search remembers your previous search, both during your current Communicare session and between Communicare sessions.

To clear all search criteria and start a new search, click New Search.

If the addressee was sourced from the EPD and saved locally, this record will be synchronised with the EPD daily.

For those entries that have been saved from the EPD, the EPD linked icon EPD icon is displayed for those addresses that can be used for secure communications.

15 March 2024