Enter POC Test Results

1 In the menu bar, click Results > Point of Care - Enter Results.

Note: The Point of Care - Enter Results menu item appears only if an administrator enabled this feature for you.

2 In the Client list, click the client for which you want to enter POC test results.

Your default client is selected automatically. You can change your default client via your user profile.

Note: If you choose a client that is not currently associated with any POC tests, the Tests list displays No Tests Defined. You must choose a different client, or contact the Help Desk to have a POC test assigned to the client.

3 Select or clear the Remember Client ID check box.

If you select this option, the currently displayed client will be used each time you enter POC test results for this lab. If you clear this option, the default client appears in the Client list.

4 If the test was requested by a physician, in the Physician list, click or type the physician’s name.

5 Select or clear the Remember Physician check box.

If you select this option, the currently displayed physician will be used by default each time you enter POC test results for this client.

Otherwise, you must select a physician each time you enter POC test results.

6 In the Patient Information area, do one or more of the following:

Search for the patient. If you believe that the patient already exists in the system (either because the patient was previously registered or because an order was previously filed for this patient), follow these steps:

a Select or clear the Advanced Results check box.

If you select this option, the search results will appear in a separate dialog box that can display up to 200 matches, and you can expand the search to encompass patients other than the ones associated with the specified client.

If you clear this option, up to 15 matching search results will appear in the Patient Information area.

If you select this check box, it remains selected in the future. If you clear it, it remains cleared.

b In the Search By list, click the option that you want to search by (SSN, PID, or Name).

The option that you last used appears in the list automatically.

c In the adjacent box, type at least the first three characters of the patient’s SSN (with or without the hyphens), patient ID, or last name.

d Click Search.

If you cleared the Advanced Results check box, the search results appear in the Patient Information area. This area displays the patient’s name, SSN or patient ID, date of birth, and age.

If you selected the Advanced Results check box, the search results appear in the Patient Search - Advanced Results dialog box. This dialog box displays the following information: the number and name of the client associated with the patient; the patient’s SSN, patient ID, name, street address, date of birth, age, and insurance carrier (if applicable); and the date and time that the patient record was last updated.

Note: On the Patient Search - Advanced Results dialog box, you can also do one or more of the following:

To sort the displayed search results, click the appropriate column heading. You can click the same column heading again to change the sort order (from ascending to descending, and vice versa).

Select or clear the Search All Clients check box. If you select this option, the dialog box displays all of the matching search results for all of the clients that you can access. If you clear this option, the dialog box displays matching search results for only the client you specified in step .

Click Add New Patient to add a new patient (as described later in this procedure).

If no matching patient information was found, a message appears. If the information that you specified was incorrect (for example, if you clicked Name and then typed an identification number), search for the patient again using the correct information. Otherwise, add the patient (as described later in this procedure).

e To retrieve the existing patient information, click the patient in the search results list.

The available demographic information appears in the Patient Information area.

Note: If you selected the Advanced Results and Search All Clients check boxes, and then selected a patient who is associated with a different client than the one you specified in step , the client associated with the selected patient replaces the client you specified. You can subsequently select the original client and proceed with entering the results.

Add the patient:

a Click Add New Patient.

b Complete at least the required patient demographic information, as indicated by a red asterisk (*).

The required information varies, depending on the lab.

Notes:  

You can specify just an SSN, just a patient ID, or both.

The patient ID, if any, must be unique for the client.

The number of address lines that appear varies, depending on the lab.

You can type the zip code in either the City or Zip box and then press Tab to automatically complete the City, State, and Zip fields.

c In the Lab Reference ID box, type any identifier that you want to use for the patient or encounter.

You can use this ID to subsequently search for POC test results (as described in Accessing Patient Test Results).

The lab reference ID specified for a point-of-care test is never saved with the patient demographic information, no matter how the client is configured.

d Click OK.

Clear the displayed patient information. To clear the currently displayed patient information, click .

This clears the information only from the page; it does not delete the patient record from the system.

7 Verify that the patient demographic information is correct, and go to the next step.

If the displayed information is not correct, click Edit, make any needed changes on the Edit Patient Information dialog box, and then click OK.

For more information about the fields on this dialog box, see the section on adding a patient in the preceding step.

8 To import any results imported from an electronic medical instrument (such as a HemoCue device), double-click the appropriate item in the Instrument Results section at the top of the page. Otherwise, go to the next step.

If you believe that results might be available but they did not appear automatically (for example, if the displayed patient is identified by an SSN rather than a patient ID), you can display all instrument results for all of the clients that you can access by clicking Instrument Merge +.

Note: The Instrument Merge + button appears only if instrument results are available for at least one of the clients that you can access.

If you double-click an item in the list, the selected test results appear in the Tests area, and the date when the results were reported appears in the Date Collected box. (In addition, the selected test results no longer appear in the Instrument Results area.)

Tips: 

If results for the specified patient appeared automatically, and you want to see other results as well (that is, results for other patient IDs), click Show All.

To hide the Instrument Results section, click Instrument Merge -.

Caution! You can remove a result from the Instrument Results section by clicking . However, if you do this, the result is completely removed from eLabs.

9 In the Report Comments boxes, type any comments that you want to include about the entire report.

These comments will appear in the COMMENTS area of the report.

10 In the Date Collected box, type the date that the specimen was collected, or click the date on the calendar.

Tip: You can use any of the following shortcuts to specify the date:

Type t for today’s date.

Type y for yesterday’s date.

Type t-# (where # is the number of days prior to today). For example, type t‑5 to specify the date five days prior to today.

Notes:  

If you are entering test results manually, no date appears automatically, even if your user profile is configured to use today’s date as the default collection date. However, if you selected a result from the Instrument Results section, the date associated with the first result that you select appears in the Date Collected box automatically. You can change it, but it will not change automatically, even if you subsequently select an instrument result with a different date.

The collection date cannot be a future date.

The collection date cannot be more than 186 days old.

11 In the Time Collected box, type the time that the specimen was collected.

Tip: You can type n for the current time.

Note: No default time is used, even if your user profile is configured to use the current time as the default collection time.

12 If you are adding test results manually, in the Tests list, click one of the listed POC tests and go to step 13.

If you selected a result from the Instrument Results section, verify that the result is correct. If it is not, go to step 14. If it is correct, go to step 15.

Note: The tests that appear in the Tests list vary by client.

13 Click Add Test.

The page displays the order code and test name, along with the unit of measure (if applicable), reference range, and any pertinent instructions.

Note: You can remove a test from the page at any time by clicking Remove Test next to the test. If you subsequently add the test again, any results that you previously specified are once again displayed. This ensures that you can change the order in which the results appear in the report without losing any data.

In addition, if you remove a test that was added from the Instrument Results section, the test is restored to that section.

14 In the Result field, specify the appropriate results.

The available or appropriate responses vary, depending on the test. For some tests, you click an option in a list; for other tests, you type a value (such as 5, HHH, or TNP). All typed letters are automatically changed to uppercase.

If you type an invalid value, a message advises you of the valid range; click OK to proceed. You must type a valid value to be able to release the results.

For some tests, you might be prompted to provide multiple results.

Note: If the order details or patient information is incorrect, you cannot edit that data here. To change that information, click Cancel, edit the order via the requisition log (as described in Edit a Filed Order (Online Edits Allowed)), and then repeat this procedure.

15 In the Comments box, type any appropriate comments related to this particular test.

These comments cannot include a caret (^), vertical bar ( | ), ampersand (&), or tilde (~).

These comments will appear on the report below the results for this test.

Note: Some electronic medical instruments send comments as well as results. If this occurs, those comments appear here.

16 If you specified Test Not Performed or TNP in the Result field, in the TNP Reason box, type the reason that the test was not performed. (Otherwise, go to the next step.)

This information will appear on the report.

Note: If you specified Do Not Report or DNR, that information will not appear in the report, but DNR is included with the HL7 results that can be downloaded as described in Accessing Patient Test Results or via Lightning.

17 If you are entering results for more than one test, repeat steps 1216 for each test.

18 Click Release Results.

19 On the Print dialog box, make any appropriate changes and then click Print, or click Cancel if you want to review the report before printing it.

20 Do one or more of the following:

To browse through or print the report, use the appropriate procedure for your version of Adobe Reader.

To return to the previous page, click Back.