Thank you to everyone who participated in our third edition of axiUm Insights. We expanded our reach even further this time, gathering data from 33 client databases with a focus on measuring how clients protect patient privacy and guide students through workflow controls and clinical decision support.
We were pleased to see that many clients are taking advantage of features in these areas, but some newer offerings have not been fully adopted. For example, it is considered best practice to:
- Control student access to only the patient charts they need.
- Use student and staff reminders to increase the completeness of records.
- Mitigate risk by using specific consent rules to ensure correct documentation is on file.
- Guide students through clinical decisions that improve the quality of care.
What needs improvement?
- 12% of clients use user-based interventions.
- 42% of clients use treatment-based interventions.
- 12% of clients use appointment-based interventions.
- No participants use approval request interventions.
- 15% of providers only see their own appointment details in Scheduler book mode
- 9% of clients are masking patient, guarantor, and subscriber IDs
- 52% of clients use specific consent rules. Only 12% use more granular controls via Consent Functions.
What are clients doing well?
- Limiting access to patient charts:
- 88% of clients restrict some user levels to assigned patients only.
- 82% of clients restrict access to patients seen in different clinics.
- Locking patient charts when certain conditions exist
- 61% of users have chart locks enabled.
- Guiding users with patient-related informational messages
- 70% of clients use patient-based interventions.
If you have an area of interest you’d like to suggest for future editions, email us at: exancustomersuccess@henryscheinone.com.
Click here to register for the axiUm Insights Program.
Continue reading for ideas to implement tools and workflows that can help you improve.
Protecting Patient Privacy
Protecting patient privacy is a key theme needed to uphold patient expectations as well as mitigate risk for organizations. axiUm has several features that can be used to help in this area, such as:
- Restricting student access to patient records
- Hiding personal ID numbers in Patient Card
- Hiding patient details in Scheduler Books for others’ appointments
Guiding Students
Workflow controls and clinical decision support are essential tools that aid in the teaching process and enhance patient safety, as students are given guidance and presented with critical information about the patient before clinical decisions are made.
- Using Start Checks is an excellent way to force an interaction between students and faculty before starting a patient visit.
- Setting up specific consent rules will ensure that all providers know of all the missing consent forms for their treatment.
- Status Bar Indicators and Interventions are great tools to inform users about issues about them or their patients and can block users from adding treatment or booking appointments in certain situations.
Protecting Patient Privacy
This article focuses on ways to protect patient privacy through settings in axiUm that restrict users from seeing patient data irrelevant to their clinical work.
Restricting student access to patient records
The most common way to restrict access to patient records is to limit the user level to “Assigned Patients Only”. Any patients without a current provider assignment with the logged-on provider will not be shown in a Patients module search.
PowerAdmin > Files > Levels > Patient Restriction = Restricted to Assigned Patients
Note: If the Patient Info window > Codes tab > Free Access check box is selected, a patient will show for all users regardless of the PowerAdmin > Patient Restriction setting. Many clients use this check box during the day when needed, and the overnight process resets (unchecks) the check box.
Restrict access to patient records using Patient Types
Patient Types can control which patients are returned in a basic patient search. This restriction is common when separating patients who only access a specific clinic, such as a Faculty Practice. In addition to access control, Patient Types can be used to indicate how those patients show up in axiUm.
The five areas of control are:
- Searchable in Patients – if unchecked, patient records will not be searchable
- Add Treatments – if unchecked, users are blocked from adding treatment
- Auto Clear Chart – if checked, the odontogram will clear after each logon session
- Add Fees – if unchecked, no fees will be recorded on treatment or other charges
- Info Manager Reports – if unchecked, the patient will not be included in any Info Manager reports.
Common usage:
Faculty Practice patients are given a Patient Type indicating that patients are only ‘Searchable in Patients’ for user levels that work in that clinic.
Typodont patients are given a Patient Type indicating that fees should not be added, the chart should clear after the logon session, and these patients should not appear in Info Manager reports.
