Smart Flow Sheet integration

Complete

1. Overview

OpenVPMS can connect to Smart Flow Sheet to:

  • create Flow Sheets for patients
  • charge treatments given to a patient in Smart Flow Sheet
  • add notes entered in Smart Flow Sheet to the corresponding patient's history
  • import Medical Record, Billing, Notes, Flow Sheet and Anaesthetic reports, and add them to a patient's history
  • dicharge patients at check-out

To use Smart Flow Sheet:

  1. Configure the Smart Flow Sheet Clinic API Key
  2. Synchronise products
  3. Synchronise clinicians
  4. Configure work lists to create Flow Sheets (optional)
  5. Configure Smart Flow Sheet

See Troubleshooting to diagnose Smart Flow Sheet related errors.

2. Configuring the Smart Flow Clinic API Key

Smart Flow Sheet needs to be enabled for each Practice Location where it will be used. This is done by:

  1. Editing the Practice Location
  2. Copying the API KEY displayed on the EMR Integration Settings page to the Smart Flow Sheet Clinic API Key

Multiple Smart Flow Sheet accounts are required if you have multiple Practice Locations, and:

  • wish to receive billing information from Smart Flow Sheet; or
  • limit products that are available for treatment, per location; or
  • limit users that are available, per location

You will need to log out after making this change for it to take effect.

Once enabled:

3. Synchronising products

In order to see OpenVPMS products in Smart Flow Sheet, they need to be synchronised.

This:

  • adds products to Smart Flow Sheet that aren't already present
    Only Medication, Merchandise and Service products are added, that are:
    • active, and;
    • available at the current Practice Location*, and;
    • don't have Use only in Templates set, and;
    • have no Product Type, or have a Product Type with Synchronise with Smart Flow Sheet ticked
  • updates products in Smart Flow Sheet, that have changed since they were last synchronised. 
  • removes products that are no longer active, or are no longer being synchronised 

* To be available at the current Practice Location:

  • Medication and Merchandise products must have a Stock Location relationship with the current Practice Location's Stock Location
  • Service products must have a Location relationship with the current Practice Location, if the Practice Use Location Products option is selected

Before synchronising products for the first time, log in as an administrator and go to Administration - Types. Edit each Product Type that should be synchronised, selecting Synchronise with Smart Flow Sheet.

To synchronise products, log in as an administrator user and go to Products - Information and click Synchronise with Smart Flow Sheet

Whenever products are updated, they should be synchronised.

Medication products

Medication products that have a Concentration must also specify the concentration units and Dispensing Units in order to fully synchronise.

Multiple Practice Locations

In multi-location practices, product synchronisation needs to be done for each practice location that has Smart Flow Sheet configured.

If the Practice Use Location Products option is selected, only the products linked to the current location will be synchronised. All other products will be removed.

4. Synchronising clinicians

In order to see OpenVPMS clinicians in Smart Flow Sheet, they need to be synchronised. This:

  • adds clinicians to Smart Flow Sheet that aren't already present
    Only active clinicians that are available at the current Practice Location are added
  • updates clinicians in Smart Flow Sheet, that have changed since they were last synchronised. 
  • removes clinicians that are no longer active

To synchronise clinicians, log in as administrator user, and go to Administration - Users and click Synchronise with Smart Flow Sheet.

Whenever clinicians are updated, they should be synchronised.

Multiple Practice Locations

In multi-location practices, clinician synchronisation needs to be done for each practice location that has Smart Flow Sheet configured.

Only the clinicians that are available at the current practice location will be synchronised.

5. Configuring Work Lists to create Flow Sheets

Work Lists have a Create Flow Sheet option. When ticked, this will create a new Flow Sheet for a patient when the patient is:

  • added to the Work List during Check In
  • transferred to the Work List

Flow Sheets are linked to the patient Visit, so no new Flow Sheet will be created if one already exists for the Visit.

6. Configuring Smart Flow Sheet

Smart Flow Sheet provides an EMR Integration Settings page that determines the notifications that OpenVPMS receives.

6.1 Billing

To invoice treatments given in Smart Flow Sheet, set the following options to ON:

  • Send Billing & Medical Records to EMR
  • Send Anesthetic Billing & Medical Records to EMR

When OpenVPMS receives treatment notifications, it creates Customer Pharmacy Orders. If a treatment is amended or removed, it may create a Customer Pharmacy Return to reverse any invoiced amount.

Where possible, these will be automatically invoiced during the Check-In, Consult and Check-Out workflows.

NOTE: if you have multiple practice locations, you must use a separate Smart Flow Sheet account for each location when using these options to avoid charges being associated with the wrong location.

Cubex

If you connect Smart Flow Sheet and OpenVPMS to Cubex, you should set the options to OFF, to avoid double charging.

6.2 Notes

Notes entered into Smart Flow Sheet will automatically be added to patient history.
By default, notes shorter than 5 words are excluded, as they typically aren't very useful.

This behaviour can be changed by adding a Smart Flow Sheet Configuration to the Practice. The Synchronise Notes and Minimum Word Count options affect note synchronisation:

  • Synchronise Notes can be used to enable or disable note synchronisation.
    When ticked, notes entered into Smart Flow Sheet update the patient history, subject to the Minimum Word Count below.
    When unticked, notes entered into Smart Flow Sheet will not update the patient history.
  • Minimum Word Count is used to exclude new notes that are too short. This only applies to notes that are being added for the first time; if a note has fewer words than the mimum count, it will not be added to the patient history. If an existing note is changed to have fewer words than the minimum count, it will be updated in the patient history to reflect the change.
    If too many notes are being synchronised that aren't relevant, consider increasing the minimum count.

6.3 Patient Discharge

To notify OpenVPMS when a patient is discharged from Smart Flow Sheet, set Export Documents to EMR to YES on the Smart Flow Sheet Documents Management page.

This allows OpenVPMS to automatically attach the reports to the patient Visit.

Individual Reports

By default, all available reports are attached as individual PDF files. This includes:

  • Medical Records
  • Billing
  • Notes
  • Flow Sheet
  • Anesthetics
  • Forms

To detemine which reports are attached, and which aren't, add a Smart Flow Sheet Configuration to the Practice.

For each report that should be attached, it's corresponding Files to Retain After Discharge option must be set to YES.

Single Report

If the Merge reports into one PDF option in Documents Management is set to YES, Smart Flow Sheet will generate a single PDF containing all of the reports.

In this case, add a Smart Flow Sheet Configuration to the Practice with the Save Flow Sheet Report On Discharge selected, and all of the other Save .. On Discharge deselected.

7. Troubleshooting

  • SFS-0103: Failed to connect to Smart Flow Sheet. Check that the Smart Flow Sheet Clinic API Key is correct.

Check that the Smart Flow Sheet Clinic API Key matches that provided by Smart Flow Sheet.

  • SFS-0118: Failed to download Smart Flow Sheet - Medical Records
    The manager turned off document on the Settings / Documents management page

The report needs to have its corresponding Files to Retain After Discharge option set to YES on the Documents Management page.

  • Production/Test systems
    If you have both a production and test installation of OpenVPMS, you should either:
    • disable Smart Flow Sheet integration in the test system; or

    • discharge any patients that have had flow sheets created by the test system, before using it for production

This is because Smart Flow Sheet hospitalisations are linked to OpenVPMS by the patient's Visit identifier, and you cannot have two flow sheets for the same Visit identifier.