Patient Management (web)

Introduction – 00:00

Hi there, and welcome to the Freezerworks 2021 learning series, your visual guide to our sample management software. Today, I want to talk about Patient Management on the Web Client: how you can create, modify, and analyze Patient data over the internet. This includes adding Samples with their Aliquots and Tests to Patient records in order to create associations that make data far more informative and easier to track. But maybe Patients isn’t the right word for you, maybe instead of humans, you’re studying animals, plants, or even bacteria; Patient Management works for all possible subjects, as Patients in Freezerworks are simply the source of Samples and Aliquots. If you’d like Freezerworks to reflect your area of study better, feel free to pick a different Alias for the Patient table in System Properties on the Desktop Client. You can even provide your own if you’d like. I’ll be going through the entire process of remote Patient Management in this video, from admin-level configuration to simply adding Samples and viewing data, so please use the table of contents from the intro if you have a specific question in mind.

Create Patients Entry Forms – 01:33

For starters, Patients can be created on the Web Client in two ways: on their own or while you’re creating Samples. Either way though, a Patient Entry Form is necessary to the process. Like Samples Entry, you will need to create Patient Entry Forms for the Web, as any existing forms on the Desktop will not be usable here. Permission to create Patient Entry Forms is actually granted by the exact same permission that allows you to create Sample Entry Forms. If you don’t have it, you may want to skip ahead to using the form and adding Samples.

To create a Patient Entry Form on the Web, log into the Web Client, click the Configuration button at the top, and then select Patients Entry Forms from the menu. You will be presented with a list of existing Patients Entry Forms assigned to your Group. Your list will be blank if this is the first form your organization is creating. If you’d like to edit an existing form, click it; if you need to create a new one, click Create New Patients Entry Form. If you’ve created Samples Entry Forms on the Web already or watched the Samples Entry Pt. 2 video, this screen should look very familiar. You have your customizable entry area made up of sections, panels, columns, and colors, except this time the area is meant for a Patient record. The Palette is here on the right – this is where you’ll name your form, assign it to Groups, and add a description. Most importantly though, the Palette contains the Panel tool and the list of available fields from the Patient table. Over here on the left, you can add your own logo or picture to the top left of the form, just like in Samples Entry. Unlike Samples Entry though, you will only have to worry about one system page: Patients. But designing that one system page is going to be exactly like configure Samples Entry. Start adding the fields that you need to the form by clicking and dragging. Be aware of the fields that contain PHI data; these will be marked with this icon. PHI fields are only masked on the list view, not on entry forms; when a user opens a Patient with this form, and they have permission to view PHI, it will automatically be visible and the Audit Trail will record the viewing. When it starts looking like you can separate some data to make the form easier to use, add a new section or section column to define a new panel, or just use the Panel tool. Don’t forget to add headings and color to all your panels to make the form more readable. If Panels get too long, add some panel columns to consolidate space. Finally, add as many tabs as you need to separate the data however you see fit. I know just raced through that, but as I said, the process is nearly identical to creating a Samples Entry Form, so if you need detailed assistance, check out our video Samples Entry on the Web Pt. 2. Once you finish your form, save it, and it will now available on the Patients Entry Form list.

Create New Patients – 04:25

Let’s use our form now, shall we? Like I said before, there are two ways to create a Patient on the Web Client.  The first one is independent of Samples Entry. Let’s say you’re just entering data for newly enrolled Patients that you’ll be collecting samples from in the future. To create new Patients, you can either hover over the Inventory Management tile on the homepage and click Add New Patients or if you’ve run a search and find yourself on the inventory list view, you can just go to the Patients tab and click Add New Patients there. Either way, your default Patients Entry Form will appear. This can be changed in your User Preferences, but you can always switch your form on the fly too with the Change Form dropdown. Once you have the form you want, begin entering data into the fields pertaining to the Patient you’re trying to add. The process of adding a Patient record in this way is exactly like standard Samples Entry, so check out our Samples Entry Part 1 video if you need to know how to enter data. Once you have all the data for your Patient filled in, you can click Create Patient. If you’re going to continue creating Patients, check on Create Another before finishing and a new blank entry form will automatically appear. Just like Samples, you can edit Patients after creation by opening them on the list view. The record will open in a read-only state to start, so the record doesn’t automatically lock. Click Edit Patient to make changes. Now, when using a Patients Entry Form, you have three system pages: Patients, Samples, and Audit Trail. The Patients page is simple – it contains all of the Patient data. The Audit Trail page will contain all of the information regarding the Patient’s creation and modification. Audit Trail records containing PHI will not immediately be visible for security purposes. To see PHI-related Audit Trail records, click the Show PHI Records button.

Add Samples to Patients – 06:25

Now, as for the Samples page, this won’t be very useful to us until we’ve actually added some Samples to the Patient. Let’s do that and then return to go over this page. You can add new Samples to Patients while you create them, but you can also search for existing Samples and add them to Patients retroactively. To add any Samples to a Patient, however, you must first have a Samples Entry Form with Patient fields on it. When using a Samples Entry Form, Patient Fields will be tagged by a Patient icon so you can easily distinguish them from the rest. If your Samples Entry form doesn’t have Patient fields, switch to one that does. If none of your forms have Patient fields, speak to your administrator or, if you can, create one that does. Now, the only Patient fields that are actually modifiable on the Samples Entry Form are unique Patient fields, such as IDs. If you know the unique data that belongs in the field in question, you can enter it, tab out, and the Sample will automatically link to the existing Patient. As you can see, all of my Patient fields filled in with data after I entered the External Patient ID. If you do not know the unique information or simply don’t have it on hand, you can always run a search for existing Patients by clicking the Add to Patient button at the bottom. This opens the search for Patient overlay. Select a field to search by from the Patients Search Field dropdown. The list will be populated with all of the Patient fields that appear on the Samples Entry Form you’re currently using. Enter a search value once you have your field and click the Search button. Select the desired Patient from the list and your Sample will be added to the Patient. If you make a mistake, you can always click Change Patient to search for a different Patient for the Sample. If the Patient you’re trying to find doesn’t exist in your database yet, click Create New Patient to open a Patients Entry Form as an overlay. Fill out the form, click Create Patient, and the Sample will be added to the newly created Patient. Once your Sample is added to a Patient, you can always view the Patient record from the Sample by clicking the View Current Patient button.

View Patient’s Related Data – 08:33

And this brings us back to the Patients Entry Form, where we can now look at the Samples page with Samples listed. This is much like the Aliquots page on a Samples Entry Form. Samples that have been added to the Patient you’re currently viewing will be displayed in a list view that you can sort, filter, and export. If you’d like to view different data for the Samples listed, select a different Samples list view format from the Listview dropdown in the bottom right. The best part about this page is you can double-click the Samples listed to open them in a Samples Entry Form overlay, giving you full access to any data about them, including their Aliquots and Transactions. This means that you can do nearly everything that involves Sample management from a Patient record. That’s pretty cool, and it’s how we’ll wrap up this video on Patient Management on the Web Client.

Conclusion – 09:27

If you haven’t yet seen our series on Samples Entry on the Web Client, I highly advise you do so. I glossed over a lot of material that’s covered in detail in those videos. Otherwise, our User’s guide has topics on everything, and our Support staff is always ready to help too. So thanks for watching, and see you next time!