Note: Clinical system integration is currently only available in England via EMIS and TPP, and Wales via Vision
askmyGP allows you to copy patient request summaries, including attachments and codes, back to the clinical system at the push of a button (currently available for EMIS and TPP). At the point of completing a request, the 'Copy to clipboard' button will be replaced with a 'Writeback to record' option, to automatically write back the entire consultation to the clinical system, providing the following prerequisites have been met.
Prerequisites
System configurations:
- Each user must enter their 'Medical Record System User ID' into the allotted field within your askmyGP staff profile. This is the username that you use to login to the clinical record system for EMIS and Systmone (e.g 'd.oshea'), and is your forename and surname separated by a space for Vision (e.g Daniel O'Shea). If you usually just login with your smart card, you can find your username in your user profile within the clinical system for EMIS and TPP.
- The clinical system must also be ready to receive data via our API, the steps to take for each system can be found here: EMIS steps, TPP steps and Vision steps
Patient record considerations:
- The patient must have an NHS/CHI number in their askmyGP record in order to correctly match them against their clinical record. If they don't have one, you can use the spine lookup in the 'edit patient' screen to match them on the spine and automatically populate their NHS number (or manually copy and paste the CHI number across from the clinical system for Scottish practices)
- The demographic details held in the askmyGP record, namely 'Surname, DOB, NHS Number and Gender' must exactly match the details held in their clinical record to successfully match, and the patient must be registered at your GP practice.
- If these conditions are not met, you will still be able to copy information manually
Settings
You can amend your writeback settings from 'Settings>System' to choose whether filed requests in the clinical system include 'Internal notes' by default (this can be manually overridden on the completion screen). You also have the option to include or exclude date and time stamps in the requests which are filed in the clinical system:
Write back steps
In order to 'write back' a request, you would manage the request to the point of completion (or transfer/await reply) and providing the above prerequisites are met, you will see the screen below:
1. The copy screen will allow you to view any Codes which may be attached to the request and will be written back when the request is copied. From here you can also add additional codes should you wish to do so, or remove any that you do not wish to write back to the patient's clinical record. See our article on coding HERE for more information.
2. You can view a list of all Attachments associated with the request here, all attachments will be included by default, but you can uncheck the box beneath any attachments that you do not wish to write back into the clinical record.
3. Clicking the 'Writeback to record' button will finalise the request completion and initiate the write back to the clinical system.
If the request successfully writes back to the clinical system, the request thread will update as below to reflect this:
Note: In addition to the request being written back at the point of completion, requests which are being set to 'await reply' can also be written back. When setting a request to wait, you will also be prompted to 'Writeback to record' to capture the request history so far within the patient's clinical record.
Troubleshooting - Filing Issues
- Unable to write back/can only copy to clipboard: If a patient does not have an NHS/CHI number recorded, you will see the following message when completing their request:
From here you can follow the instructions to edit the patient details to add the CHI Number, or perform a spine lookup to populate the NHS number, or simply choose to manually 'Copy to clipboard' the request history across to the clinical system in the first instance. - Filing failed: If the write back was unsuccessful and filing to the patient record failed, you will be notified in the top-right hand corner of the screen as below:
- You can click the 'Go to thread' text to be taken directly to the request in question. The request thread will have updated to provide specific details regarding what caused the failure, to allow you to investigate further to resolve the issue:
- Reviewing filing issues: In addition to being notified by the alert in the corner of the screen, all requests which failed to writeback will be stored in the
section of the system, which can be located as below. A badge count will denote how many of your requests have failed to writeback, so that you can see at a glance and review those in a timely fashion:
Clicking the 'Filing Issues' will return a screen which will appear as below:
From here you can review failed filings and requests which are still pending filing (not yet succeeded or failed to writeback.) You can choose to filter by all filings, or only those pertaining to you, using the toggle at the top, as well as having the option to click the refresh button to update the list (1). Below that, you will see the failed filings listed (2) and can select one to attempt to correct any issues preventing the write back from completing successfully. - Resolving filing issues: Once you have selected a request, it will appear in the right-hand pane and at the very bottom of the request thread you will be able to see the reason for the failure. Examples might be that askmyGP was unable to match the patient correctly on the clinical system due to a demographic mis-match, or codes included in the write back could not be correctly mapped in the clinical system.
Once you have taken the steps to correct the issue (whether that be updating the patient demographics so that they match the clinical record, or correcting/updating any codes that you are wishing to write back), you can click the 'copy' button to attempt write back again:
This will then return the 'Copy' screen again and from here you will have three different options:
1. Copy to Clipboard - If you have tried and are unable to resolve the issue which is preventing the request from writing back correctly, you can simply choose to 'Copy to clipboard' and manually paste it into the patient record instead
2. Clear filing status - For any request filing issues that you were unable to resolve, after choosing to manually copy it to clipboard (1) you can use this option to remove the request from the 'Filing issues' list.
3. Writeback to record - If you were able to resolve the issue which was preventing the request from filing, you can choose 'Writeback to record' and the request should now successfully write back to the clinical record and the request will automatically be removed from the 'Filing issues' list.
Troubleshooting - Pending Writebacks
If askmyGP encounters issues connecting to your clinical system, we will be unable to process any request filings until the issue is addressed. This could, in extreme cases, be due to technical issues with your clinical system provider, such as a system outage, or more likely problems in the writeback configuration at your practice, which is preventing us from communicating with your clinical system.
Any requests which are pending writeback will sit in a queue for 24 hours, after which we will notify you of an issue if it hasn't been resolved before this time. After 24 hours, if a writeback is still 'pending' you will receive the following alert at the top of the screen upon login:
'There are pending filings in your writeback queue that are older than 24 hours. please ensure that your filing system is functioning correctly'
If you go to 'Settings' and 'Diagnostics' you will be able to see the exact age of your oldest pending filing in hours, which may give an indication as to what could be the cause of the issue:
Details on the correct configuration for EMIS can be found here and the details for Systmone can be found here, they should assist you to ensure that you are set up correctly for writeback. As ever, if you require any assistance at all, please get in touch via the 'Help' button.
Once the system configuration issues have been resolved, the queue should pick up from where it was and begin processing the pending requests. If any other issues are identified, such as demographic mismatches, these requests will return to the 'Filing Issues' list as you would expect for you to review, resolve and reattempt filing.
Important note: if after 4 days (96 hours) the pending filing queue has not been addressed, your system will fall back to manual filing until the issue has been resolved (Click here for more details)