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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.
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.

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.

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.

Entries in the EPD can be linked to the Endpoint Location Service (ELS), to make them available for Secure Messaging. Therefore if you want to be able to send documents via Secure Messaging to a service, you must import this service from the EPD.

EPD Address Book

Use the Address Book Search or Address Book Entry window to download address records from the online National Health Services Directory. Once synchronised, the address book entry will be synchronised with the information in the EPD daily. The synchronised information is not editable from Communicare, because any changes would be overwritten when synchronising. Other fields that are not available in the EPD are fully editable and will not be changed when synchronising.

Communicare will attempt to communicate with the EPD only when prompted by the user using the Search EPD or Match to EPD functions. It will also attempt to connect to the local installation of Argus at the same time. If either fails, an error message is displayed and Communicare attempts to reconnect each time the user tries to look up the EPD. If the connection succeeds, this stays in place for the rest of the session (until Communicare is closed). If the connection is lost during normal use of Communicare, the system will again try to reconnect with each EPD lookup.

Configuring for the EPD

To enable access to the EPD you need a local installation of Argus 6, and the URL and API Key of the EPD web service.

Once Argus is set up, configured, and enabled:

In File > System Parameters > System tab, set Address Book Integration - EPD. See System Parameters - System.
In File > System Parameters > Web Services tab, in the EPD section, enter the URL and API Key. See System Parameters - WebService Configuration.

To check if EPD is enabled:

In the File > Address Book Maintenance search for an address.
Click Search EPD, enter some search details and click Search Now.

The system should search the EPD. Double-click an address in the EPD Search Results window and make sure you can save this to your local Communicare address book.

15 March 2024