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Helix Practice Manager

Practice Manager Quick Guides

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Contents Guide to Consultation Notes ................................................................................................................. 2

Reading previous consultation notes: ............................................................................................... 2

Adding a New Consultation Note: ..................................................................................................... 3

Guide to Medication .............................................................................................................................. 4

Adding New Medication to a patient’s file ........................................................................................ 4

Repeating Medication for a patient .................................................................................................. 6

Stopping Medication ......................................................................................................................... 7

Guide to Downloading & Reviewing Bloods ........................................................................................ 10

Download the files........................................................................................................................... 10

Import the files into HPM ............................................................................................................ 10

View and Match Results .............................................................................................................. 11

Rejecting Results ......................................................................................................................... 14

Exam Management ......................................................................................................................... 14

View the results in the patients file ................................................................................................ 16

Guide to Immunisations ...................................................................................................................... 17

Setting up Vaccines ......................................................................................................................... 17

Administering an Immunisation ...................................................................................................... 18

Guide to Cervical Smears..................................................................................................................... 20

Recording a Cervical Smear for a Patient ........................................................................................ 20

Smear Recalls .................................................................................................................................. 22

Guide to Maternity .............................................................................................................................. 25

Adding a New Pregnancy Record .................................................................................................... 25

Visits ................................................................................................................................................ 27

Outcome .......................................................................................................................................... 27

Printing ............................................................................................................................................ 29

Guide to Cancer Referrals ................................................................................................................... 30

Setting up Online Referrals ............................................................................................................. 30

Sending an Online referral .............................................................................................................. 30

HL7 Referral Messages .................................................................................................................... 33

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Guide to Consultation Notes

Reading previous consultation notes:

1. From the patient’s summary screen you can see the patient’s last few consultation notes in

the Consultation Notes box.

2. If you want to see back further or these notes in more details click anywhere on this box.

Select the note you want to read and click the View button. Or, you can also hold your

mouse over the note to view the text without opening the note.

3. Click on the date of the note on the health summary screen and it will bring up the

consultation history view which will show you others consultation items that were entered

on this day.

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4. Click on the Patient History Tab on the summary screen to view the consultation history in

another format. You can enter Consultation notes form here also.

Adding a New Consultation Note:

1. From the patient summary screen click Add New or click into the consultation notes area

and click Add at the bottom of the screen.

2. In the Summary box enter a Summary of the consultation, you can either select from a pre-

defined list or type in your own heading.

3. Type in the details of the consultation, you may use the templates if needed.

4. To add from the templates, first choose the category, and then use the template option to

select the text you want to use.

5. There are links to websites at the bottom of this screen, for easy access to the internet

sites.

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6. Print Notes – Select this option to print out a list of the patient’s previous consultation

notes.

7. To code the consultation note click into the condition box and type in the diagnosis and

click on the search button

8. This will bring up a choice of codes, select the relevant code and click ok. A description can

be added if needed. If you want to add more than one diagnosis code, click on Add this will

allow you to add another code without coming out.

9. At the top left hand side of this screen are three other options:

a. Show Patient History – This will display all the patient’s history from all areas of the

file (Vaccines, medications, medical history, etc.)

b. Vital Signs – Select this option if you want to record vital signs for the patient

c. Add Document – Select this option to add a letter.

Guide to Medication

Adding New Medication to a patient’s file

5. From the patients summary screen click the ADD NEW button in Long Term

Medications

6. The Medication Item Details screen will open. Fill in:

a. The Drug Name – Choose the search type you want to use for selecting the

drug: Generic name Only, Trade Name Only, or both. Type in the Drug name

and choose from the Drop down list.

b. Directions - Start typing the code and pick from the drop down list, or un-

tick the Codes tick box and free type in your own instructions

c. Days Supply

d. Quantity – Use the Units option here if needed e.g. MLs, Sachets etc.

e. Tick Long Term if this item will be repeated in the future

f. Enter the number of times this item should be dispensed.

7. Click ADD if there are more items, repeat step 2 and click OK after the last item is

done.

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8. The Prescription Details screen will open showing the list of drugs you have

selected. Choose the Prescription Type (Private or GMS 1/3 month).

9. Before printing, you can change a number details in the Item List:

a. You can Edit an item by selecting a drug from the list and clicking Edit

b. To delete an item from this prescription, highlight it and click Delete

c. To add more items, click the Add button.

d. To change the Quantity and Days supply of one or more drugs, highlight the

required items, fill in the new Quantity and Days supply, and click Update

Days/Qty

e. You can change the number of times an item will be dispensed by

highlighting the relevant items, entering the number of Dispenses, and

clicking Update Dispense

10. Allergies and Interactions for all the drugs on the prescription are listed at the

bottom of the screen

11. Click Save & Print to print the prescription.

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Repeating Medication for a patient

1. From the patient’s summary screen, click into Long Term Medications box

2. To repeat all the Long-Term Items, click Re- Issue Long-term

3. Make any changes to items on the script if needed using Edit, or Delete unwanted

items using DELETE. Any New items can be added at this stage using the Add option.

4. Click Save and Print to print the prescription

To select only certain Long Term Items or acute items:

1. Click on the first item required

2. Press and Hold down the CTRL key on the keyboard

3. Click once on the remaining required items while still holding the Ctrl key

4. Once all items are highlighted, stop pressing the Ctrl key and click Re-Issue

5. Edit the script as required and click Save and Print.

NOTE: If there is no need for editing the script, choose the Option ‘Re-Issue and Print’ to

print selected items, or ‘Re-Issue Long Term and Print’ to print all long term items, this

will print the prescription immediately and will mean less clicks are required.

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Stopping Medication

If any Long Term item is no longer needed for the patient then it should be removed from

the Long Term List. To do this, highlight the Drug and select Stop.

You will be prompted to enter in the reason for stopping the drug, select the reason and

click OK.

The item will be moved into the Historic List of drugs, where it can be viewed, or re-Issued

if needed.

Guide to Writing a Letter

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Open up the patients file that you wish to create the letter for.

Click the Add Letter shortcut in the Documents box in the Health Summary Screen

Click on the ‘Template’ drop down box and select the required letter

Click on the search button for the contacts if required (there will be a red! marker if this field is

required).

Click OK to open the letter. You can edit the document from here and add any detail you wish.

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There are four Tabs at the top of the RTF Editor:

Home – This contains basic text editing functions such as font, paragraph and page setup features.

Insert – This tab contains options for Tables, images, headers and footers, etc.

Practice Manager - This menu contains a list of demographics from your system including all patient details (Registration details, consultations, Medications, medical history, etc.)

Snippets – If you highlight a section of text, you can add it to the snippets section where it can be stored and used in other letters as a template.

To print the letter, click the red Helix icon on the top left of the screen and select Print.

Click close to save and close the letter. The letter will be saved in the patient’s chart in Documents,

under the Letters Tab.

Note: You can use the minimise button on the top right of the screen to temporarily close the letter

and go back to the patient screen. It will go to the bottom of your screen, simply click on the letter to

open it again.

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Guide to Downloading & Reviewing Bloods

Download the files If you are receiving messages from Healthlink, you will not need to download the file first (skip to

the next step). If you are not receiving Blood results through Healthlink, you will need to download

and save the file first. It is a good idea to always save your blood download to the same location,

e.g. C:\HL7 Imports

Import the files into HPM

Import the HL7 message into the HPM application. Click on the ‘Administration’ tab and click on the

‘HL7 Tests’ icon.

Here you will be able to view any previous imports that you have done. If you want to view any

previous imports, you should highlight the required line and then click on the ‘Details’ button.

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To perform a new import you should click on the ‘Import’ button.

If you are receiving your bloods through Healthlink, the list of bloods will appear on the screen.

Otherwise the following screen will open where you can select the files to Import:

This will default to the ‘Directory’ that was last used (which should be set up correctly for you). If

you need to change the directory you should click on the ‘Select’ button and select the relevant

directory.

The list of files that you are about to import is listed in the above screen and is ticked. If there is

any one file that you wish to leave out of the import you should un-tick the file.

Click on the ok button to commence the import.

View and Match Results

During the import the system will attempt to match the results to the patients in the application

and the exams in the application.

The majority of the time this should succeed. It might fail in cases where the hospital have spelt the

patients name incorrectly for example or have spelt the exam name slightly different to the name of

the exam as in our system.

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In the Unmatched tab you will see the patients name, date of birth, address, the test type, the lab

where the result has come from and the status of the result. There are two icons which can appear

in the status –

Patient Unmatched – The patient details need to be matched to the patient in your system

Test Unmatched – The name of the test result needs to be matched to a test in your own

exams.

To match an unmatched patient and test, highlight the result and click Match. The patient search

comes up first. The date of birth will automatically be entered in the search to find the matching

patient. You can enter in other search criteria if needed such as name, GMS number, etc.

Click here to view and

subsequently print

the results.

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Select the correct patient and click OK. This ensures that the correct result goes to the correct patient.

Once a patient is matched up once, they should not need matching again the next time they receive

results.

The match test screen opens next if the test is also unmatched. The Exam and the test(s) within that

exam need to be matched up. Click on the name of the exam on the left of the screen and a list of

matching exams will appear in a list on the right hand side. Click on the matching exam and click

Match Selected.

Repeat this process for the tests.

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If there are no matching exams or tests there, click Add New Exam to create a new exam or Add New

Test to create a new test.

Again, once you match an exam once you will not need to match it again next time.

Rejecting Results

There may be times when you are sent results for patients who are not in your practice and have

been sent to you in error. You can remove these results by highlighting the result and clicking Reject.

Exam Management

Once your exams have been matched up to the correct patients, you can review all your results. They

can be mark for further action, marked as completed or printed.

To view your exam results, click on the Tasks tab in the top menu bar and then click on Exam

Management.

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The exam results belonging to the user/doctor that is logged into the system will be displayed

automatically. You can view other users or all users by clicking the drop down menu on the right

hand side.

There are three lists of exams here:

1. For Review – these are exams that are received and matched but not reviewed yet. They have not been marked as complete yet.

2. Awaiting results – When an exam is taken and recorded as awaiting results in the patients file, they appear in here.

3. For Notification – Results that are reviewed but you do not want them to be marked complete appear here. For notification could mean you wish to contact the patient to speak to them about the result.

In each of the above sections you can see the patient name, the exam name and the date of the

result. Click on a result to see the result details in the box on the right hand side. Abnormal results

are highlighted in red.

From this screen you can decide what you wish to do with the exam. The options are:

1. Change Status – from here you can mark an exam as completed, for review or notification or back to awaiting results

2. Move to patient which will move the exam to another patient if entered in error 3. Open Patient – which will open the patient summary screen 4. Create Task – you can create a follow up task for this exam 5. View HL7 which opens the Lab view of the exam 6. Create Note – Creates a consultation note in the patients file 7. Override Outcome – where you can manually override the results

You can filter the results by date by entering a To and From date in the date fields.

You can also choose to only see only the abnormal results or only the normal results using the

buttons here:

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View the results in the patients file Open up the patient’s health summary and click on the Tests box which is on the bottom left hand

side of the screen.

You will see any recent exams for this patient here.

To see further details on each result you can click on the details button

Abnormal results will be highlighted by a Red and Blue dot.

If there are bloods in a patients chart that have been downloaded but not yet reviewed by the

doctor there will be a flashing icon (test tubes) at the top of the patients file.

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Guide to Immunisations

Setting up Vaccines Before you can administer a vaccine to a patient, the products that you have in stock must be

entered into the system. In the future the best time to do this is whenever a batch of vaccines is

delivered.

1. Open Administration, click on Other Settings and Vaccines

2. This will list all of the Immunisation types on the left and the product used to

administer the immunisation on the right.

3. If a new vaccine needs to be added then click on Add, firstly select the drug then add in

the immunisation types that it will be administered for. If the type is missing from the

list, it will need to be added into the Lists and Drop down section in Other Settings.

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4. Default Site, Method, Dose and notes can be added as defaults

5. Click the Add button to add in the current batch number and expiry date. If you have

more than one active batch, then add in as many as you have active. If a batch is all

used up then it can be made inactive do not delete it.

Administering an Immunisation

1. The childhood schedules comes as standard with the system, this can be seen on the health

summary screen under the heading Recall Opportunities, which shows when a baby is due

for their recall dates.

2. To administer any vaccine click on the Immunisation button on the ribbon in the patient’s

chart. If they are a child the childhood vaccines will be displayed on the right hand side and

any vaccines give, both childhood and others will be displayed on the left.

3. To administer a shot from the schedule click on the shot then Create From Schedule or to

add in an immunisation not in the childhood schedule click on Add.

4. If adding from schedule then the immunisation type will be entered if not select the

immunisation type required from the list.

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5. When the immunisation type is selected the vaccine drop down will become populated with

the current batches in the fridge which you have entered earlier.

6. The other boxes should be populated with the information entered in the vaccine set up

but can be altered if different for this vaccine.

7. Reactions can be entered now or at a later date.

To print a record of the patient’s vaccines, click the Print button at the bottom of the Immunisations

screen. You can also print an STC form from here which will import the Vaccine details onto the

form.

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Guide to Cervical Smears

Recording a Cervical Smear for a Patient

1. Open the patient who is getting the smear using the patient Search icon.

2. Click on the Protocols icon in the toolbar.

3. Choose Cervical Smear

4. Click on

5. Fill in the details of the smear on this screen. Use the scroll bar on the right to see more

details:

Date Of Smear

Status – When a smear is first taken, you can mark the status as awaiting and once it is completed it can be changed to reflect this.

Observations – this is a free text box to add in notes at the time the smear has been taken.

Reference Number – This is the number on the result from the lab

Date of result – The date the result was received

Result – There is a standard list of possible results in this drop down list.

ICSP – Tick this box if this smear is part of the National Cervical Screening Program

Duration to Next - The ‘date of next’ smear is updated based on what length of time is selected in ‘duration to next‘.

Date next smear – The date the patient will be due her next smear test.

Smear Comment – Add any additional comments here

Referred to Colposcopy – Use this tick box to mark the smear as referred.

You can choose to stop the patient showing up in any smear recalls by clicking Stop Recall.

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You can print the Cytology Form from here also by selecting the Print Cytology button. Most of the

patient’s details will already be filled in on the form once they are entered on the patient s

demographic details i.e. ICSP Number, PPSN number, etc. To print this, click the Submit button.

To print the details of the patients smear history click on the Print Details option.

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Smear Recalls There is a standard recall schedule set up in HPM that will enable you to easily recall all female

patients over 25 who are Due or overdue a smear test.

Once a patient is Female and over 25, then a recall opportunity for a smear can be seen in the

patients file:

Once a smear is recorded in the Protocols section as detailed above, then the recall opportunity will

update automatically, showing the last smear result, and the new Next Due Date.

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To Recall a list of patients:

1. Go to the tasks Menu

2. Go to Recall Opportunities

3. Choose the Recall Type, i.e. Cervical Smear

4. Choose the Status of the patients you want to find:

a. Not Yet Notified

b. Completed

c. Appointment Refused

d. Appointment Made

e. Patient Notified

f. Recalls Stopped

5. To find patients due a smear sometime in the future, enter the dates you want to search in

using the To: and From: options and select the Due Date option

6. If you want to find all patients overdue a smear, do not enter any dates, and choose the

Next Due option

7. Click Search to find matching patients

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8. A list of patients matching the selected criteria will appear and you have a number of

options:

a. Edit – You can edit the details of the recall opportunity (date due, status, etc.)

b. Make Appointment – This will open the Appointment Planner to allow you to make

an appointment

c. Edit patient – This opens the patient details so you can change any of their details

e.g. contact details

d. Mark for mail merge – Puts a tick in the Mail Merge box for the selected patients.

e. Print Mail Merge – Create a letter for each of the selected patients

f. Prints List – Use this option to print out the list of patients.

g. Mark for SMS - a tick in the SMS Merge box for the selected patients.

h. Send SMS – Opens the SMS screen where you can select a template text, or create a

custom text that will send to all the selected patients.

i. Mark for Email - – Puts a tick in the Email Merge box for the selected patients.

j. Send Email – Sends an email to all selected patients.

k. Open patient – Highlight a particular patient and click this option to open their file.

Select the patient you want to do any of the above actions on by clicking once on them. To select

the entire list of patients press and hold “Shift” and arrow down to the end of the list. To select

certain patients hold “Ctrl” and while holding this key left Click on the patients to select.

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Guide to Maternity

Adding a New Pregnancy Record

To record information in to the Maternity Protocol, open the patient’s chart. Click on the Protocols

button and choose Maternity.

All details of a patient’s pregnancy are held in this section, from the initial visit, through all the visits

throughout the pregnancy, to the post natal details.

To start a new pregnancy record, click on Add New Pregnancy.

The Initial visit tab will be populated with a number of different fields to be filled in.

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Fill in the details by scrolling down to the bottom of the screen.

The next tab Obstetrician can also be filled in with the relevant information.

Once you have filled in all the details on screen, click Back to save the data.

A pregnancy icon will appear on the patient’s health summary screen. You can hold the mouse

over this icon to see the EDD date of the pregnancy, or click on it to open the pregnancy details.

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Visits To record a new pregnancy visit, click Add New Visit.

The Date and Gestation (in Weeks) are entered automatically. The Type of visit will default to Ante Natal. Fill in the other details as needed by scrolling to the end of the screen.

Outcome Once the pregnancy is over you can fill in the outcome tab.

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Once the delivery date has been entered, the pregnancy is completed and the pregnancy icon will

disappear from the patient health summary screen.

You can add the infant details here also. Scroll to the end of the screen and there is an Add Infant

button.

Here you can enter in the infant’s name, sex, weight, and head circumference.

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Once you have added the infant details you can click the button Add to Patient Database. This will

open the patient registration screen where the name of the baby and the mothers address will

already be filled in.

Printing

There are three print options in the main maternity section:

Claim form – Used for claiming money back on maternity services

Maternity Summary – Prints off a summary of the whole pregnancy

Pregnancy Advice Leaflet – opens a pdf document of pregnancy advice.

To print one of these, use the drop down list beside Maternity Service Claim to choose which

one you want to print, and then click that button to open up the document. Then simply click

the print button to print it.

To print the Claim form, click Claim Form, the form will open with the details of the pregnancy filled

in on the form, including all the visits, the mother’s details and the GP/Practice details.

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Guide to Cancer Referrals

Setting up Online Referrals Online referrals are sent through Healthlink. In order to do this, each Machine must be set up with

an individual Certificate which must be applied for through Healthlink. For more information on

setting up Certificates, you can go to www.healthlink.ie.

Once you have received your Certificates from Healthlink, you can contact Helix Health Customer

Support (01 4633098) to complete the setup process.

Sending an Online referral There are a number of types of cancer referrals that can be sent online through Healthlink from

HPM, for example:

1. Breast Cancer

2. Prostate Cancer

3. Lung Cancer

4. General Referral

For each of the above referral types, there is a form available which can be filled in and sent directly

to the Hospital via Healthlink.

To complete and send an online referral, complete the following steps:

1. Open the relevant patient’s chart

2. Press Documents drop down button in the ribbon.

3. Select Electronic Referral

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4. Select a referral type from the drop down Menu at the bottom of the screen e.g. Breast

Cancer , Prostate Cancer, Lung Cancer, General Referral

5. Press Add to open the referral form.

6. Before the form opens, the system will check Healthlink for a match of the patient, i.e. if

there is any previous record of that patient. If a match patient is found their details will be

displayed on the form with their previous MRN number.

If not a default MRN will be picked for them which can be changed later.

7. Enter all the required details on the referral form. Each form has a number of required

fields indicated by *, such as Hospital, Priority, reason for referral, etc. Also there are a

number of automatically filled fields, such as Name, Date of Birth, Medical History, etc.

Complete the form as required and click OK.

8. You will be asked if you want to send the referral now. Press yes if you have entered all the

correct details and are ready to send the referral now. If you select no the form will be

saved and can be edited and sent at a later stage.

9. You will get an acknowledgement message for your referral to confirm the form is being

processed.

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Alternatively, a message will appear if your form is rejected or failed to send. This may be

due to missing information on the form.

The referral form will be saved in the Cancer Referral section with the name of the refferal, the

date is was entered, and the Status of the referral. The status will either say rejected, or accepted.

From here you can also edit the referrals or add new referrals.

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HL7 Referral Messages

When the referral has been addressed in Healthlink, a HL7 Message will be sent by Healthlink to

HPM and will appear in the HL7 messages section. To read these messaged go to Tasks and Unread

Messages.

You can review all Healthlink messages from here. The message will also appear in the patients file

in the HL7 Messages section in the top ribbon.