The Explorer tab in the Exams group provides access to the orders and reports in your system. It contains one search area for quick search by accession numbers and patients, one to invoke worklists, and one for using search filters. The system remembers your filter selections from one session to the next.
Once you have found the order you want to see, you can take various actions on it.
Use the Look for field to search for orders or reports across all sites in a multi-site system.
NOTE: The Look for search option does not take into account any drop-down filters. These filters do not apply when you are doing a quick search (by Patient Name, Accession, and so on.)
To search for orders or reports:
1. In the Look for drop-down list, select the criterion for the search you want to perform: Accession Number, Patient MRN, or Patient Last Name.
2. In the text entry field, type the data to find.
3. Click Search. Any orders or reports that match your criteria appear in the results grid.
TIPS:
You can use an asterisk as a wild card character; for example, select Patient Last Name and then type Smi* to find patients whose last names begin with Smi. Or, select Accession Number and then type 1234, *56*. The search returns the accession number 1234 and all the accessions that contain the string 56.
You can use the percent character as a wild card replacement for one or more characters; for example, select Patient MRN and type 1111%2. The search returns MRNs such as 11102, 11142, 11162, and 11192.
To search for multiple accessions, enter each accession followed by a comma.
In the WL (worklist) box, you can search with previously defined system-wide worklists.
To retrieve a worklist:
1. In the WL drop-down list, select the desired worklist.
2. Click Search. Any orders or reports that meet the criteria in the worklist appear in the results grid.
This set of filters allows you to search for orders, reports, or both. The filters with a value other than All create a logical AND expression; that is, the filter retrieves only orders and reports that meet all of your criteria. The following list shows the available search filters:
Site: In a multi-site system, search for orders and reports in a particular site.
Order Status: Search for orders of a particular status (Completed, Scheduled, Temporary, Cancelled, Dictated Ext., or Entered).
Patient Class: Search for a particular type of patient (Inpatient, Outpatient, Pre-Admit, Emergency, Recurring Patient, or Obstetrics).
Account: Search based on the resident who dictated the report, or the attending physician who dictated or is assigned to the report. Transcriptionist/editors and technologists are also listed here. Inactive user accounts are omitted from the list.
Locking: Search based on a report's lock status (All, Locked, Unlocked, Assigned, Unassigned, Locked or Assigned, or Unlocked and Unassigned). Locked reports are those which are currently being dictated.
Report Status: Use this filter to restrict the search based on report status (All, Draft, Pending Correction, Corrected, Pending Signature, Final, Wet Read, Correction Rejected, Sign Rejected), including broader statuses like Non Final, Addended, Reported, or Unreported.
Section: Search based on customized site sections. This filter is disabled if you have not selected a site.
Ordering Physician: Search for exams ordered by the selected physician from a site. This type-ahead filter contains only active physicians who have ordered at least one exam, and is disabled if you have not selected a site.
Time Frame: Search for orders or reports based on the time frame. For unreported orders, the filter is based on the time of the exam. For reported orders, the filter is based on the time the report was last modified. This filter includes values like Past hour, Past 4 hours, Today, Yesterday, Past 2 days, Past 3 days, Past week, Past 2 weeks, Past month, Tomorrow, All Future, or No limit. To specify a range, click the Custom link above the drop-down list and enter start and end dates. These dates are inclusive in the search.
Transfer Status: Use this filter to search based on report transfer status (All, Exceptional, Not Ready, Ready, Sent, Rejected, Failed, Held, Queued, Force Send).
Location: Use this filter to search based on the site location associated with the order. This filter is disabled if you have not selected a site.
After setting your search filters, click Search. The results grid shows all applicable order records.
TIPS:
If a report is associated with multiple orders, all the orders that satisfy the search criteria are listed separately in the grid.
If the report has an addendum, the properties listed (status, attending, and so on) refer to the addendum.
If many results are found, the results grid is divided into different pages. Click the page number in the bottom right corner of the grid to navigate to a specific page.
Hover over the page label to see the total number of records.
To view more items on each page, click the small downward arrow icon at the end of the page number list.
Click on the column headings to change the sort order. The software remembers the order you selected.
If you invoke a worklist that contains a sort order, the order is applied automatically and the grid shows it in its footer. Apply a different sorting by clicking the header.
NOTE: There is a limit on the number of orders you can retrieve at one time. This limit is set by default to 500 in the Maximum Explorer Search Records system preference, found on the Explorer Screen tab in the System Preferences window.
Each accession number in the results list is a hyperlink to an order and report preview window. This printer-friendly page also provides patient data, exams associated with the report, the report's addenda, and any notes, custom fields, or attachments.
In addition to the preview, there is an audit trail for the order and report, listing events such as when the report was received from the RIS, when it was created, edited, signed, and so on. In the last column of the audit grid, called Content, there are icons you can click to download the report content at each step in the reporting process.
You can download the plain text (TXT), the formatted text (RTF), or the dictated audio (WAV) of the current report independently of the audited content. These files are available for the number of days specified in the Days to Keep Content Audit configuration option. For final reports, they are typically deleted after a few days so that the database does not grow too rapidly.
A Download menu (outside the audit grid) allows you to download text and audio of the current report independently of the audited content.