Episodes
In Touch EMR allows you to have multiple episodes for the same patient.
The underlying principle for the Episodes feature in In Touch EMR is progressive documentation and independent pathway for different patient body parts/specialty types at the same time.
Example:
If a Physical Therapist does an Initial Evaluation and does daily notes, re-evaluations etc. (with data carry forward)...and if an Occupational Therapist is also working with the patient at the same time, they can also create an Initial Evaluation, daily notes, re-evaluations with data carry forward independently of the Physical Therapist (vice versa).
The episodes will be associated with different USERS for display purposes only. As a result, a default episode shows to a user when he/she is on the patient dashboard. However, they are not restricted to that episode.
Any user will be able to select different episodes in the drop-down menu and the system will show all the documents (in progress, completed, plan of care, flowsheets, etc) pertaining to that episode.
Creating an Episode
Every In Touch EMR patient chart will have an Episode Default, which is the original episode. Users will have the ability to rename the episode. All subsequent episodes will then be listed below that.
To start creating new episodes, go to the Episode tab from the Patient Dashboard and click Add Episode.
A pop up box will appear, users must enter the Episode name, creation date and assign a user before saving the episode.
IMPORTANT: If a clinician has been assigned to an episode, each time that they are in the patient dashboard, the episode that they have been assigned in will be the default episode. This allows the user to not have to see episodes that is not related to their care.
Once saved, the new Episode will show on the Episode List
Episode List
To view and edit the list of episodes, under the Patient Dashboard click on Episodes.
In this page, you will have the following options:
- Assigned users - During episode creation, it requires that you assign the episode to a certain user. It will show in this list which user the episode has been assigned to. NOTE: The assigned users will see the Episode they are assigned and all associated documents when they login. They are not restricted from viewing other episodes, but they will see the assigned episode when they use their login.
- Referral resource - for the Default episode, automatically, whoever the referring provider assigned on the patient chart will be the referral resource listed. But if you want to make changes to that, you may.
- Edit - there is an ability to edit the episode and make changes to the information previously provided
- Assign Referral Source - to change the assigned referral resource, click this button and choose the referral resource from the list. NOTE: You can have different referral resources per episode and whoever the referral resource assigned to the episode will be the referral resource name showing on the PDF for the documentation.
- Hide - once clicked, this will hide the episode and no users will be able to see it or use it until you UNHIDE/ SHOW it again.
Starting Documentation - choosing an Episode
As previously stated, all patient chart has a Default Episode. If the patient is being seen for different injuries or different care, (chiropractor or physical therapy), it would be best to create different Episodes.
Prior to starting documentation, choose the right episode where this documentation should fall under. The Episode for each patient will appear on the Patient Dashboard under the DOCUMENT and EPISODES drop down menu.
You can choose which episode to associate the document with by clicking on your selection from the drop-down.
NOTE: Once you have chosen the Episode of care you want to work with for a particular patient, any documentation created is then associated to that specific episode and cannot be changed.