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Administration
Communicare Administrators can tune the way in which Communicare works at your health clinic.
System Administration
System administration functions affect all Communicare users and should be used with care.
Reference Tables
Clinical Item Maintenance
Clinical items are an essential building block for providing a care pathway with the clinical record workflow.
Clinical Item Type
A clinical item type is a predefined value that a clinical item for a patient can take.
Clinical Item Groups
Clinical Item Groups define collections of Clinical Item Types that have some common characteristic.

Administration
Communicare Administrators can tune the way in which Communicare works at your health clinic.
- System Administration
  System administration functions affect all Communicare users and should be used with care.
  - System Parameters
    If you belong to the System Administrators user group, you can configure Communicare by setting system parameters.
  - Organisation Maintenance
    Configure Communicare for your organisation by setting organisation parameters. Changes to organisation parameters affect the Communicare system for the organisation and all workstations.
  - User Groups
    Users of the Communicare system are organised into groups. Rights to access various parts of Communicare are given to these groups of users.
  - Reference Tables
    - Communicare Data Updater
      Use the Communicare Data Updater to update Central items and other clinical data, AIR rules, templates and reports, and the GRT in your database.
    - Certificates
      The Certificates Maintenance window lists all of the currently installed certificates used in various places in Communicare, including for Services Australia (IHI, OPV, AIR, Medicare and so on), My Health Record, and ePrescribing.
    - Appointment Facilities
      A facility is an object that is needed on an exclusive basis for an appointment.
    - Requirements
      Requirements are services or objects that may be needed for particular patient appointments and services, such as Fasting Bloods, Test Results, Transport, X-Rays.
    - Public Holidays
      Public holidays identify normal working days (or part days) that the practice will be closed.
    - MIMS Database Import
      If your site uses the Prescribing Full or Prescribing Once off/short course module, Adverse Reactions or browses the MIMS drug database, update MIMs monthly.
    - Formularies
      Use the Formulary Maintenance window to manage medication lists or formularies.
    - Locality
      The Locality reference table is a list of places used in patient addresses. It is initially populated with over 14,000 localities used by Australia Post when your Communicare server is installed.
    - Patient Skin
    - Patient Group Maintenance
      Use the Patient Group Maintenance window to define the groups that a patient can belong to and the behaviour of those groups.
    - Encounter Place
      An encounter place can take one of two forms.
    - Text Shortcuts
      Add or modify the text shortcuts for commonly used blocks of text available in Communicare. Text shortcuts can be used by clinicians in progress notes and letters.
    - Dosage instructions
      Use the Dosage Instruction window to review abbreviations or short codes for use when prescribing and add new abbreviations.
    - Medicare Benefits Schedule Shortlist
      Because the Medicare Benefits Schedule (MBS) is so big, you can control the order in which Medicare Benefits Schedule (MBS) items are displayed in Communicare and add short descriptions that are meaningful to your context.
    - Private Billing Configuration
      Use File > Reference Tables > Private Billing options to modify the fee schedule and private billing types used by the Private Billing module.
    - Investigations
      Investigations can be requested by a provider from within a patient's clinical record. Use the Investigation reference table to define investigations.
    - Clinical Item Maintenance
      Clinical items are an essential building block for providing a care pathway with the clinical record workflow.
      - Clinical Item Type
        A clinical item type is a predefined value that a clinical item for a patient can take.
        Clinical Item Type Properties
        Clinical items have a set of structured properties that define the information that can be included in a clinical item, group items, link the item to ICPC-2 PLUS and SNOMED, and enable Communicare to perform advanced calculations and reporting, enable recalls and referrals, control access, and so on.
        Clinical Item Keywords and Shortcuts
        Clinical item keywords help you locate clinical item types or define shortcuts to clinical items.
        Clinical Item Definitions
        A definition is a full description of what a clinical item actually means and possibly notes on how and when it should be used.
        Clinical Item Topics
        Clinical Item Groups
        Clinical Item Groups define collections of Clinical Item Types that have some common characteristic.
        Clinical Item Classes
        A clinical item class is a grouping of clinical item types that have common properties and attributes (data values).
      - Create a Clinical Item
        Trained Administrators can create new clinical items if required.
      - Qualifier Types
        Qualifiers add additional meaning to a clinical item, for example to add observations, dates and to request investigations.
    - Special Lookup Table Maintenance
    - Transport Mode
    - Chart Types
    - Viewing Rights
      Viewing Rights define access levels to clinical data for each user group.
    - SNOMED CT Import
      Communicare uses SNOMED CT-AU terminology to capture clinical data.
    - Reference Table Codes
      Communicare reference tables use a variety of codes to identify and manage clinical data.
  - Appointment Session Templates
    Appointment Session Templates identify when appointments can be made, in a general way. They are used as a template for creating the sessions into which appointments are actually booked.
  - Providers
    The Providers window lists clinicians who have been added to Communicare as providers at your health service.
  - Medicare Number Import
    Patient Medicare numbers can be imported directly from files provided by Medicare Australia.
  - Patient Import
  - Communicare Security
    Communicare's security scheme is designed to be easy to maintain yet effective. It works on 3 layers: SYSDBA, ADMINISTRATOR, MEDISYS.
  - Daily Process Service
  - Automatic Patient Status Change
    Every night the server will check the Inactivity years in system parameters and use it to change a patient's status after the specified number of years, based on the existence of contact services and patient address.
  - Terminal Server and Communicare
    The Communicare client can be installed on a Terminal Server.
  - Backup Regimes
    Backups of your Communicare database are critical for business continuity in the event of a disaster. Communicare is automatically backed up to the server nightly. Your site should take regular backups of these backups.
  - Disaster Recovery
    In the event of disaster, call Communicare Support on 1800 798 441 and follow these steps to recover your data.
  - File Transfer
    Communicare demos and updates are available from the Communicare User Portal - Help and Support tab.
  - Firewall Configuration
  - Upgrades
    Communicare upgrades are performed remotely by Communicare Support at a time arranged with the system administrator.
  - Database Connection Settings
  - Central Data
    Communicare maintains and distributes a specific set of Clinical Item definitions. Centrally maintained Clinical Item definitions are referred to as central items.
  - Terms Conversion
    Together with your Implementation Consultant, when your site goes live with Communicare, a clinician with Administrator user privileges can use the Terms Converter tool to convert local terms into centrally maintained terms, for example, ICPC-2 PLUS terms.
  - CAT Export Tool
    Use the CAT Export Tool to export datasets defined by the Improvement Foundation from Communicare as XML. These XML datasets can then be loaded into PEN CS' Clinical Audit Tool (CAT).
  - Background Processes
    Communicare runs a number of server-side background processes that integrate with various external services.
  - Communicare Logs
    Adjust the level of detail recorded in Communicare logs if required.
- Tools
  Use these tools to help manage Communicare.
- Regular Administrator Tasks
  There are several regular maintenance tasks for the Communicare Administrator to perform.

Clinical Item Groups

Clinical Item Groups define collections of Clinical Item Types that have some common characteristic.

Groups can be very useful for analysing Clinical Data or setting up recalls. For example, a group could be created to link all Endocrine-related diseases. The Endocrine Group could then be used to report or analyse all Endocrine-related diseases in a single step, rather than reporting each disease separately.

Any number of groups may be defined and a Clinical Item Type may belong to any number of groups.

Clinical Item Groups are colour-coded:

Black - ICPC-2 PLUS terms
Blue - other items distributed by Communicare
Purple - local terms

In a clinical item, the Groups tab shows the groups to which the clinical item type belongs, for reporting and analysis purposes.

Tip:

Ensure that you add a definition and describe exactly what the group is intended to be used for. If you don't add a definition, the group may be misunderstood and misused at some time in the future.

To add a Clinical Item Group:

Select File > Reference Tables > Clinical Item Group.

Alternatively, in a clinical item, on the Groups tab, click Edit Groups Table.
In the Clinical Item Type Group Maintenance window, click Add row.
In the new row, add a clinical item group name.
Click Ellipsis and in the Group Definition window, add a description for the group and click OK.
Click Save.

The Clinical Item Group is created. You can now add a Clinical Item Type to the group.

Clinical Item Group Keywords

Some reports in Communicare use the clinical item groups browser. Add Clinical Item Group Keywords to help you locate clinical item groups.

To manage the keywords associated with a clinical item group:

Select File > Reference Tables > Clinical Item Group Keywords.
Define your keywords in the upper grid and associate these keywords with groups using the bottom grid.
There are restrictions on the editing of ICPC-2 PLUS groups and group keywords, but you can add local keywords to an ICPC-2 PLUS group, and add ICPC-2 PLUS keywords to a local group.

8 October 2025