Accuro®EMR is the most recent version of Accuro available. The reason for no version number is because Optimed is going to a more regular release schedule to avoid large annual releases. Optimed is now offering regular product releases to all customers. To get the latest release, run your “Update Accuro” at your convenience. Note that once you update one of your computers, all of your computers will need the update run so please coordinate with your clinic. Administrators can lock down updates.
The release notes below are dated. When you apply the update, you will receive all changes since your last update. To find the last date you updated, login to Accuro and click Help > About > Details.
IMPORTANT NOTICE:
The 2014.05 release of Accuro EMR can take longer than usual to launch Accuro after the first update.
The first update can take between several minutes and a couple of hours depending on how long your clinic has been using EMR and how many doctors are in your clinic.
While Accuro applies change from the update, Accuro will be unavailable for other users.
Please consider this and wait to run the update to 2014.05 at a time of day when it will not impact the operations of your clinic. Be sure to launch Accuro after updating to apply the changes.
Accuro Release Notes Index by IterationIt’s time again for another update to Accuro EMR! Read on for a description of the latest features and functions. You can always access release notes from the Help menu of Accuro. If you are unsure of how to Update Accuro, please contact QHR Client Services.
You likely know that you can cancel an appointment in Accuro and that when you do this a reason for cancellation is required. This appointment cancellation is then viewable in F4 for the patient. There is now a second option to remove an appointment, called “Delete”. This is meant to be used when you booked an appointment in error and don’t want it appearing like a cancelled appointment. To delete an appointment right-click and select Cancel Appointment > there are now two options Cancel (the same as before) or the new option to Delete the appointment.
An update has been made to the Clear Sent in faxes, instead of just being able to select all; users can now select using an age filer at the top of the fax manager (e.g. clear faxes older than one month). To access the fax manager click the Fax link at the bottom-left of the Accuro window.
An update has been made that now allows users to download a previously received fax. A manual Download button has been placed next to the OK button in the Download fax window. This button is only displayed when a specific Unite login is selected and not when All is selected. To access faxes click the link at the bottom-left of the Accuro window.
The fax downloading was locking Accuro while each fax was being downloaded and processed into the documents section. This was slowing down clinics with a high volume of fax traffic. A change has been made so that the fax downloading is now a background process ensuring that users can continue working while the faxes are being downloaded.
The wording has been updated in the Edit Signature window as there were a couple of grammatical issues.
An update has been made so that forms can be locked from within the Virtual Chart as well as from within Encounter Notes (before this update the lock button was greyed out if the form was opened in the Virtual Chart). To access the virtual chart select the EMR icon > click the Virtual Chart tab.
An update has been made to the sorting order of the “From” and “Subject” columns in mail so the sorting order is no longer case sensitive. To access mail select the Home icon > open the Mail folder.
The following items were identified during review of the BORN requirements as not being needed, but they would be nice to have. These have been added to make the Antenatal module function more smoothly for users:
The size of tool tips on table values is now more user friendly.
The Gest. Age at US field size has been limited.
On the Medical History Tab, adding really long comments no longer causes the screen to become really wide and text now line wraps.
On the Visits Tab, adding really long comments no longer causes the screen to become really wide.
For New Pregnancies, if previous pregnancies exist, the Obstetrical History from previous pregnancies is carried over so users don't have to re-enter it.
On the Initial Tab, in the Patient Demographics section, the labels are separated from the patient information.
In the Visits Section, the non-selected visit view has been made easier to read.
Antenatal visit lab test has been expanded to include the remaining Visit results (Urine Prot, Pres Posn, FHR, FHM).
Lab mappings finds all instances of the Physical History results.
The size of some fields has been limited, where this is required.
Comments fields that were too large and hiding other fields have been limited, where required to ensure all information can be seen.
Note: The Antenatal module is only available to BORN pilot sites.
An update has been made so that users can now also attach CDM worksheets in letters. To attach documents in a letter select the EMR icon > click the Encounter Notes tab > right-click on the note and select Generate Letter > attachments are added at the bottom-left of the Letter Generation window
A change has been made to the Update menu (Tools > Update) to ensure that only items specific to the user’s province are now displayed.
A long distance checkbox has been added to the provider search window (abbreviated to LD because of space constraints) and the Edit Insurer window. Access provider search by clicking Tools > select Address Book > click the Providers tab > click the Manage Providers Button (or click the Ellipses button beside Family or Referring Physician in the Patient section). To Access edit insurers click Tools > select Address Book > click the Insurers tab > click the Manage Insurers button > add or edit an insurer (or from the Billing menu select Manage Insurers).
A change has been made to ensure that there are no abbreviations (e.g. U for Units) used in any Prescription Printouts, Letters, Forms or prescription Summary. This change was made to comply with accredited programs that some clinics may be participating in.
There was no procedure in place for handling when First databank deleted medications from their list. When medication could no longer be found the prescription displayed in Accuro without the name of the drug. An update has been made so that a record of deleted medications is now kept and the user is notified that the medication has been removed. Also, a new contraindication warning has been added saying that no contraindication check is being performed against the drug that has status Removed (if the patient has that removed drug on their chart as a current prescription).
A minor update has been made to the software controlling the printers to allow better handling of RDP and Citrix sessions. There had been issues because there was extra text attached to the end of a printer name what was preventing the default printer from being recognized. This update will fix this issue.
Updates have been made to the printing of the Antenatal module by adjusting the font and layout to ensure that the information is better presented and easier for the user to read. To access the Antenatal module select the EMR icon > click the Antenatal tab.
Note: The Antenatal module is only available to BORN pilot sites.
An update has been made so that locked chart items are no longer displayed in query alert results. To access Alerts (Query Builder) click Reports > select Alerts (Query Builder).
A new antenatal category has been added to Alerts (Query Builder). The following items can be queried on:
LMP
EDB (by LMP)
EDB (Ultrasound)
Final EDB
To access Alerts (Query Builder) click Reports > select Alerts (Query Builder).
Note: This item is only available to BORN pilot sites and is only displayed if the Antenatal module is enabled.
The following changes have been made to the Outstanding Requisitions, Referrals, and Orders Window
A booked date has been added to the referral table. This is to allow the clinics to track the appointment date that a referral patient is booked to see the clinic they were referred to.
A contact has been added to the referral. For referrals this is the referred to provider, and for other orders it can be used as the lab. This is to be assigned to providers, insurers, and generic contacts.
A checkbox has been added to the Outstanding Orders tab (Patient Appointment History window) called "Include Reconciled Orders” to enable users to view reconciled orders in this window.
An update has been made to Alerts (Query Builder) so that queries can now be run on data contained in the Resource System Services history band. Items from this band can be found by selecting the category of EMR in the dropdown and then clicking Resources System Services. The items that can be queried are: History (title in the history band e.g. Blind Low Vision Program), Date, Note, Negative and Details. To access Alerts (Query Builder) click Reports > select Alerts (Query Builder).
Note: This item is only applicable to clinics with the Antenatal module (BORN pilot sites).
The color in the scheduler header for holidays has been changed to a darker/lighter green gradient to complement the colors introduced during corporate rebranding (previously it was white/light green gradient).
The fields in the New User window have been updated to limit the number of characters allowed. Once the number per field has been reached, no more characters can be typed in. This update is because users typing in extremely large amounts of text were causing errors to be generated in the database. To add a new user click Users > select Manage Security > click Users > click the Add button.
Activity log entries have been added for any time a query alert is run. The parameters that were used in the query are logged, but not the patient result list that is generated from the query alert. To access Alerts (Query Builder) click Reports > select Alerts (Query Builder).
An update has been made to the sorting order of permission templates so the sorting order is no longer case sensitive. To access permission templates click Users > select Manage Security > click Users.
A clinic reported that their charts were very slow loading. An investigation found that accessing parts of the database was not as efficient as it could be. An update has been made to ensure the database is accessed efficiently to improve performance.
An update that will improve the performance of Accuro has been made; Accuro now loads only the appropriate User and Office preferences for the person logged in. Prior to this update Accuro was loading all preferences whether they were required for the person logged in or not. Visually there will be no difference to what the user sees.
If a lot of text was typed into the additional patient alerts field the text was in one line across the screen, rather than in a paragraph format, making it more difficult to read. A change has been made to the way the text is displayed so that it is now displayed in paragraph format. To add a patient alert select the Patients icon > click the Other tab > click the Add button next to Global Messages.
The fields in the New User window have been updated to limit the number of characters allowed. Once the number per field has been reached, no more characters can be typed in. This update is because users typing in extremely large amounts of text were causing errors to be generated in the database. To add a new user click Users > select Manage Security > click Users > click the Add button.
An update has been made to the Default SLI fields in Provider Configuration (F2) to clarify its use by updating the tooltip to say, “Sets the Service Location Indicator on New Ad Hoc Bills”. The default SLI is not used when creating new appointments; it is for bill only bills.
When a user tries to download forms in Accuro, if an error occurred no forms were displayed. An update has been made so that if an error occurs a warning message advises users that there has been a problem.
If duplicate codes existed (where one of the duplicate codes had a leading or trailing space in its name) users were prevented from being able to select the correct procedure code (e.g. selecting "W1049" would load the code with the space in front in all cases). A change has been made to ensure that if there are any codes with leading/trailing spaces, they can be selected and edited as expected. To access Custom Procedure Codes click Billing > select options > click Manage Procedures.
If there were a large number of records to be retrieved in the fax manager it could take a long time to load. This was caused by the fax manager trying to sort the records as it was populating. An update has been made to allow the records to be loaded before attempting to sort them. This improves the efficiency of loading the faxes. To access faxes click the Fax link in the bottom-left of the Accuro window.
Inside clickable words the formatting of the text was not being preserved if different choices had different formatting. An update has been made to ensure that the text formatting inside clickable words is preserved once the selection has been made.
A client reported that office provider assignment seemed to be freezing as the progress bar was not moving. An update has been made to ensure the progress bar displays more accurate information for the user. To mass assign click Tools > select Admin Tools > click Office Provider Assignment.
When users filtered by a specific type (e.g. Cash) the patient payment was filtered correctly but the account payments still included all payment types. An update has been made and the account payments are now filtered to only display the selected payment type. To access reports from anywhere in Accuro press Ctrl+R.
If a patient’s enrollment was terminated (e.g. because the enrollment date was incorrect) and then the patient was re-enrolled, the patient was not included in the Cumulative Preventative Care reports. The patient is registered, but they were not included in the report because the date that the patient was terminated was after the date that the user input for re-registering them. An update has been made so that users can no longer re-register patients with a date that is prior to the termination date.
With a very specific and unusual workflow a user was able to delete a reviewed CDM worksheet. Reviewed worksheets should not be deleted and so an update has been made to ensure this cannot happen.
When documents are filed to a patient’s virtual chart a second copy was automatically saved in the deleted folder. This caused the folder to become very large and slowed down the time it took for the Documents area of Accuro to load. An update has been made to that documents filed to a patient’s EMR are no longer copied to the Deleted folder. To access documents click the Documents icon.
Note: This only occurred when the setting “Do not permanently delete documents” was enabled (Documents section > click Options button).
When an invoice was created, in some circumstances it was saved automatically to the virtual chart, in other instances the user was prompted to save. An update has been made to ensure that users are now always asked if they want to save an invoice to the virtual chart. To generate an invoice select the Patient icon > click the Private Billing tab > right-click on a claim and select View Bill > make any changes > press Save and Close > The Generate Invoice window is displayed.
Note: When a generated form is saved to a chart, there is a prompt “always perform this action” if this selected all generated forms are automatically saved to a patient’s chart. A User Preference has also been added that has the same effect (File > User Preferences > Display > EMR Workflow tab).
If a code or description contained a single quotation mark it would cause the search to fail. An update has been made to ensure that searches are now single quotation mark friendly. To perform a custom diagnostic search select the EME icon > click the Encounter Notes tab > click the Add button in the History of Problems section > type in the description or code and click Search.
An update has been made to correct a typographical error, Ophthalmic in the prescriptions section.
The Nova Scotia service code unique identifier code was refactored to be more supportable moving forward.
The following changes have been addressed in the waitlist:
Clicking Waitlist no longer opens a new Waitlist window when the Waitlist is already open. Instead the existing Waitlist window is now brought to the front.
When adding a procedure and the item being searched for cannot be found "No Matches located" used to display a message saying click Enter again. This is no longer displayed
In the OR Booking package Envelope window the text ran off the screen in the select Assessment Form step.