printing medical records

[hec]

Does anyone have any suggestions on how to print the records to make it "legible" When I print to PDF as Crystal PM suggest, the layout seems to be all over the place and isn't "very pleasant for the eyes" especially if I have to send this record to another office. Anyone have any better suggestions to print/send medical records of patients?

[ecastaff8]

I agree.  When we print medical records to send to another office OR when we have records uploaded to patient portal and print, the printed copy doesn't look good.  For example, there may be words overlaying other words, so that it is unreadable.  Anyone else have this issue?   Could it be caused from the editing of medical records??  Thank you for your response.

[mark174]

Yes, you can create "word templates" which essentially pulls the data to the word document which is already laid out to your liking. This is very time consuming and there is a learning curve to doing so. There are video's on youtube, here is one of them:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1RcHnOvURg

[erica]

You have the option to set up a custom letter, you would be able to format the letter to your liking and designate what pulls through from the medical record.
Please see the file below which will walk you through how to create letters:
How to create a letter in Crystal.pdf (625.75 KB)
Let us know if you have any questions!
Erica

[hec]

thank you for the info on the letter template. I knew about that already but that is really time consuming plus it won't add "checkbox" fields that is in your records (it only pull "textbox" fields) so was wondering if there was a easier shortcut.

[Elliott H]

I came up with a relatively simple/ quick way to do this.   I open a blank word document/ set it to landscape and narrow margins. I then open my Crystal records to fill the screen.  Clicking on one tab at a time, I take screen shots/ go to the word document/  paste and then go to the next tab. It prints out and seems easy to read.  Only issue- if you have info on the Crystal screen that does not show on the screen, you won't see it.   -

[hec]

that would be a lot to do, especially if there are multiple tabs or staff that does not know how to do it. Is there not any easier and more efficient solution from Crystal PM for printing out records?

[erica]

Creating a letter is going to be the best option if you would like a more formatted look.
I know that it does take some time to set up, but after the initial set up, it's smooth sailing - just a few clicks to export the info into the letter.

Right now you can add the check box field on your letter, if the box is checked it will come over as a "1".
You can change the "1" to a "none" when you input values if you want to.
I will look to see if there are any other options for the check box issue and let you know.

Thank you,
Erica

[mdeyedoc]

This is a huge shortcoming of Crystal and, so far, all the options are bad. The pdf files that Crystal generates are not acceptable because the formatting gets messed up if the template is too wide or if the items overflow the field. I finally created a Word Template for an exam report containing most, but not all, of the med rec fields but it was a HUGE undertaking. The instructional video link posted above is mine and yes, you can add checkboxes in a Word Template. The Crystal letters are easier to create and save once you have the letter template but inserting more than a few fields in a letter is an absolute nightmare and you don't have the formatting control like you do with a Word Template. I made a separate report for CL patients and put all the I&Rs in another report but there are still a bunch of extraneous fields that are used enough that they need to be included but will be blank for most patients.

Especially now that M2 requires that exams be made available online, we have to come up with a better system than the current pdf files. A generic report is impossible when everyone has unique med rec fields but they really need to brainstorm with a group of docs and see if they can come up with some alternative.

In the mean time, it would be much quicker to access the Word Templates if we could set a default folder location for our template files and saved letters (like they do for scans) so we didn't have to browse to locate the Word template file and then again to the file location when saving them to the pt files.

[annew]

I would really like to be able to print a pdf and not have any information cut off. We need to print medical records for requests from insurance companies, patients, other doctors, lawyers, etc. The current print to pdf always cuts off information. We can't send them letter summaries when they request the actual medical record in it's entirety. What is the solution? Please make this easy for us.

[hec]

I created a letter template (which is VERY time consuming and still am not completely done so hopefully Crystal is in the process of coming up with another way to print records in the meantime) but quick question. I am trying to print the letter template I created and using data from exam from few months ago. In order for me to do that I have to go to "old records" to the date of the exam and click edit and then letter. is there a way to print this so it will import the data to my letter template without having to "edit" the exam?

[Cluny]

I have also noticed that some record fields are not being pulled from the "Print to PDF" function.  This results in having to double check each page for missing fields.  As has been said by others, creating a custom "letter" is a very time consuming process.

[Kraig]

First, I prefer the Word template to the Letters. Easier to create and much easier to edit.

Second - we can help you clean up your template to even out lines and remove overlapping when using the "Print to PDF". It still won't be as nice as a Word template, but it will look much better. If you're familiar with editing your templates, the overlap is due to labels being hidden under field boxes. All you need to do is figure out what label it is, go to that FID in the Edit Records box, then just delete the name (NOT THE FID, JUST THE NAME!). When you save, the label will be blank and will no longer show through. If you want to even out the lines, ALT+T will align the tops of the highlighted fields, which will straighten everything out when using Print to PDF.

Cluny, I have not had any issues with data not printing out unless it's off the page (in a very wide template, for example). I'd be happy to look at it with you, though.

And last but not least, if you are using a pre-made template, such as Cass or Detloff (Cary Opto), many of these have pre-made letters that you may just not have gotten. If this is the case, let me know and I'd be happy to look for you!

[mdeyedoc]

Jul 24, 2014 15:24:55 GMT -6 Kraig said:

If you're familiar with editing your templates, the overlap is due to labels being hidden under field boxes. All you need to do is figure out what label it is, go to that FID in the Edit Records box, then just delete the name (NOT THE FID, JUST THE NAME!). When you save, the label will be blank and will no longer show through. If you want to even out the lines, ALT+T will align the tops of the highlighted fields, which will straighten everything out when using Print to PDF.

Cluny, I have not had any issues with data not printing out unless it's off the page (in a very wide template, for example). I'd be happy to look at it with you, though.

That's good to know that it's just the labels. I mistakenly thought it also happened when the text overflowed the text box but I just tried printing with some really long text and it is all there.  It does move the row down across the entire page which really messes up the formatting when you have multiple sections across the page.  I have the attached the pdf of my exam tab printout with normal fields and again with some fields with excess text so you can see how the formatting changes. Another problem that I have is that many of my buttons do double duty as labels (to save space) and buttons don't print so I lose those labels. 

Fortunately, I don't have many labels hidden. The main time I hide labels under the field is when I have an FID on multiple tabs and I need it labeled differently on one tab than the other. The problem with clearing out the text is that the text is the only thing that displays in several Crystal operations (eg. filtering a Correspondence Report on a med rec field or adding med recs to a Crystal letter). If there's no text you have no idea what that FID is for.  The proliferation of FIDs also makes it harder to find what you want. I really wish all the buttons and labels were separate from the actual fields with pt data so we didn't have to scroll through a bunch of irrelevant fields in these operations.

As an alternative to clearing out the text, I would recommend moving them off to the right. That's where I store all my blanks  so they don't get in the way of selecting fields, etc. The downside to moving ones with text there is that they will create scroll bars which can be a pain sometimes, which is why I hid the few I had. I was also afraid they might create an extra page on pdfs but I just checked and it gets cuts off, just like wide templates do. In this case, that's a plus. Clearing the text or moving the labels out of the way also won't fix the printing for past records when versioning is used.

However it doesn't take a really wide template for the right edge of the template to be cut off. On the attached pdf of my exam tab, the text is all there but the right edge is cut off a little in the actual printout. That particular tab only extends about 1/2" beyond the CL Rx button. I've got some other tabs that are wider so they would definitely get cut off. Also, I resized all my template fields to 9 pt font so I see everything without scrolling. I have no problem seeing that on the screen but it looks more like a 6 pt font (or less) in the printout.

Marcia

Attachments:

Test Exam pdf normal.pdf (25.54 KB)

Test Exam pdf long text.pdf (26.09 KB)

[mdeyedoc]

Jul 24, 2014 15:24:55 GMT -6 Kraig said:

And last but not least, if you are using a pre-made template, such as Cass or Detloff (Cary Opto), many of these have pre-made letters that you may just not have gotten. If this is the case, let me know and I'd be happy to look for you!

I (Dettloff) do have Word templates for exporting exam records but they do NOT have all the fields so they can't be used for all patients and there is no automated process that will create them and upload them to the portal. When I made them, my goal was to have something to send out in response to (infrequent) record requests, not as a format to be used to provide med recs for every patient. To avoid a bunch of blank fields, I made three separate templates: one for regular exams, one for CL exams and one with the I&R fields. I didn't include he procedure fields, the less common (for me) VT fields, Rx recheck fields or post-op fields. If patients have data in those tabs, we would have to print those tabs separately.

The most promising option I've come up with so far would be to create a separate tab just for the purpose of printing records. It's still a lot of work but you can copy all the record fields to a new tab, lay them out however you want and add whatever labels you want FAR easier than trying to create a Word template with all your fields.

I was worried about excess text still causing overlap but that isn't an issue. The fact that the next row gets pushed down is only a problem when you have multiple sections across the page. You can prevent that, and text running off the right side, when laying out the medical records tab. Since you won't be entering data on that page, scrolling isn't an issue.

My labels also got pushed to the bottom of the "row" when there was excess text but I suspect I might be able to get rid of that by moving the labels up a little or maybe Crystal can make a change that justifies the text to the top instead of the bottom of a row.

Several potential problems I see with using this method currently:

• The med rec report tab would not be visible after the exam date unless you remembered to manually enter something on that tab. Crystal should be able to make it visible all the time like the ARRA and Rx tabs.
  

• Printing the single tab won't give you the ARRA stuff data that is inlcuded when you print the full med rec now and no automatic upload to the portal. That could be changed in the software.
  

• A med rec report tab won't work on old records with versioning since the new tab won't show up in old versions. Crystal might be able to force it to show that tab all the time but if you've changed your FIDs you'll get the wrong data in there.
  

• There will be a ton of empty fields. I don't have an answer to this. The data needs to be there if we print "the record". I don't know if it's possible, but it would be awesome if we could lay out the fields in sections and somehow only have the sections containing data print out.
  

OR... maybe we could have a similar but independent tab system for printing medical records??? We could lay out the fields how we want them printed and have different tabs for different sections. Then somehow activate tabs only when they have data in them. We'd need to be able to copy the fields from the source medical records templates so we just have to move them around rather than having to add each field to the tabs.

Another idea that I came up with would require expansion of the FID database with columns for a "report" label (since the text used on the template may not work for the report). That way a med rec report could be generated that only contained active fields. To avoid having to enter labels on EVERY field, the original conversion could copy the existing text column into the label but it's still a lot of work. There would also have to be some way to order the fields. Versioning is also a problem with previous records.

Marcia