About Orders - Attach File
Paper documents that are commonly photocopied and saved in the physical patient file can be attached to a patient's electronic medical record. Incoming faxes from referring providers, insurance companies, and employers are another source of electronic files to store in a patient's medical record.
Electronic files are attached to a patient's medical record using the Orders - Attach File choice from the main menu. The types of files you can attach to a medical record include the specific file formats that are defined in . SYSTOC is configured to handle media types that are readily available to most users, including .pdf, .doc, .txt, .bmp, .jpg, .tif, .mpeg, .mp3, .wav, and avi. The use of some media formats requires the addition of corresponding media players. Restricting the number of file formats helps to ensure that everyone is able to access necessary patient information.
Files are attached to a patient's medical record with a new order that may or may not coincide with an actual appointment. Attaching a file to an existing appointment makes it easier to find because you can search on a patient's appointments. We recommend against attaching a file to a future appointment because the record may be lost if the appointment is deleted.
For optimum efficiency, create special tasks such as SCAN-MED (scanned medical record) or SCAN-NON (scanned non-medical information) to streamline the attach file process. It may also be useful to create individual tasks (such as SCAN-PT, SCAN-RX, etc.) that are assigned to different task groups, potentially making them easier to find when searching orders. The task description may be edited to provide a detailed description or note regarding the attached file. Because it always creates a new order, do not use the Attach File menu option if you want to attach the file to an order that already exists; see Attach a File to an Order.