What's new in 2018.3

To improve readability, discontinued medications and medications that are no longer available on the market now appear in grey italic text instead of strikethrough text. See Viewing patient medications (new prescriber).

For variable and sequential dose prescriptions, the start date of each new dose is now included on the printed prescription.

Printed prescriptions now include the time when it was printed in the footer, in addition to the date.

When entering drug allergies and choosing a reaction type of Other, the details that you type in the comments are now included on the printed prescription.

This release includes the activation of the new vitals entry features, which was unfortunately not enabled in the original v2018.3 release. We apologize for the inconvenience that this caused to our users who were looking forward to using this new functionality. To learn more about this new feature, see Vitals entry, where you can also view a recording of a webinar that we hosted to introduce and demo this functionality.

When using eFax, if an incoming fax is considered incomplete (for example, pages are missing and were not sent properly), within the Wolf EMR incoming faxes folder, the fax document's file name will now have the text _PARTIAL appended at the end. This indicates that you should follow-up with the sender so that they can re-send the fax. For more information about this functionality, see Electronic faxing (eFax).

Users suggested this new feature as an idea on the Wolf community portal: Documents - Options to retain keywords and document type when linking documents

When linking several documents in a row that will have the same keywords and/or document types, you can now choose to retain the ones that you just selected as the default ones for the next document. The keywords and document types are retained only for your current session, and return to blank after you close the Documents window. From the Options menu, choose Retain Keyword(s) and/or Retain Document Types. See Linking documents to patient charts.

Wolf EMR now supports importing Fraser Health PDF Transcription from Excelleris for Maternal Fetal Medicine and Early Pregnancy Assessment Clinic reports. Once imported, these reports display in the Electronic Investigations area. Once you view an Excelleris Transcription Report however, it is saved in the Documents area in the patient’s medical summary. See Importing electronic investigations and reports.

A new PatientAgeInYears bookmark is now available to insert within SMART forms. It inserts the patient's age as a simple numerical (such as 32). For patients younger than 10 years, shows the age in years in decimals (such as 0.75 if the patient is 9 months old). See Bookmarks.

A new reminder preference was added in Patient Maintenance for patients who prefer to have No Automated Reminder. See Adding a new patient.

The Appointment CSV Extract report now includes additional fields for patient ID, appointment ID, provider ID, preferred language, and the patient name is split into first, middle, and last name. See Scheduling reports.

Wolf EMR now integrates Patient Assistance Program (PAP) information directly on your prescriptions while prescribing participating medications with the new prescriber. This copay program enables patients to receive brand-name medication at a subsidized cost from participating manufacturers. This integration simplifies informing patients of program availability, allowing greater choice and decreased patient costs.

Note: This integration is only available in the new prescriber. If you are not yet using or haven't yet learned about the new prescriber, see New prescriber.

After the update to this version of the EMR, each provider will be prompted upon log in to participate in the program. Providers can also opt out (or opt in) at any time.

When providers opt in, after they choose a medication to prescribe, the EMR checks to see if a program exists and, if so, an indicator within the medications window alerts you. If desired, a certification code will then be added on the prescription for the pharmacy to process and you can print an optional information sheet for the patient and pharmacy.

For more information, see Patient assistance program.

The new prescriber received the following enhancement. If you haven't yet learned about the new prescriber, see New prescriber.

Printing all medications prescribed by other providers

When you choose to Print All prescriptions, medications prescribed by other providers in your clinic are now included.

New prescription fields

The following new fields are now available when prescribing medications. While these were added to support the upcoming PrescribeIT™ e-prescribing functionality, they are available to all users of the new prescriber.

Site of Admin: (blank by default) Indicates to a pharmacy where a medication should be administered (such as left shoulder). You can manually add new sites.

Problem: If a problem is selected within the prescription, it now appears in the printed prescription.

Improved renewal requests window

The Prescriptions Pending Review window for both front-end staff and providers was improved.

Front-end staff view:

Provider view:

Renewal requests for each pharmacy or patient are now grouped.

In the front-end staff view, the first line shows the patient information, followed by the date of the request, and medication details.

In the provider view, the patient banner appears at the top. The first line shows the pharmacy information, followed by the date, location, and provider who is requesting the renewal, followed by the medication details.

To see more detailed information, click View More.

Status icons now appear for each medication in the queue. This enables you to see at a glance which action was taken (approved , denied , patient must come in , recalled )

For more information, see Managing queued prescriptions - queuer workflow (new prescriber) or Processing queued prescriptions and refill requests - provider workflow (new prescriber).

Pharmacy address book

A new pharmacy address book is now available when you search for a pharmacy while prescribing and in Patient Maintenance. When you select a pharmacy, click the icon.

The Multum medication and interaction list was updated to reflect new, modified, and discontinued medications, as well as updated dosages up to the June 2018 drug list.

Users suggested this new feature as an idea on the Wolf community portal: Entering vitals

We improved how vitals are entered in Wolf EMR. Front-end staff can now enter vitals without the presence of a health care provider. In addition, providers and front-end staff can now easily enter historical vitals and enter multiple values of the same vital (such as blood pressure taken at intervals during the same visit). You can access the vitals options from the right-click menu (Vitals Without a Provider, Vitals Multiple, and Vitals Historical).

Entering vitals by front-end staff

Front-end staff can now enter vitals in patient chart s without the presence of a provider. For example, if patients are participating in a weight management program, staff can capture their weight from the clinic scale.

From the WorkDesk, under Data Entry, click Vitals Without Provider and find the patient.

These vitals visits do not have a real provider attached to them and are not billed. Instead, they are entered as a special “vitals without provider” visit, under a specially-configured “non-provider” (for example, named Vitals Provider). These visits appear in the list of encounters, and show the initials of the vitals provider (for example VP).

When filtering encounters, you can choose to include or exclude these vitals visits. Before front-end staff can enter vitals, the special vitals provider must first be enabled and configured.

For more information, see Entering vitals without a provider (front-end staff) and Configuring non-providers for vitals entry.

Entering historical vitals

You can now easily enter multiple historical vitals at once. For example, a patient may provide a set of vitals that they captured over the course of several days or weeks. Or, you may receive a set of vitals from a consultant’s letter. There is no encounter associated with these readings.

From the WorkDesk, under Data Entry, click Historical Vitals and find the patient.

For more information, see Entering historical vitals and Configuring historical vitals entry.

Entering multiple vitals

You can enter multiple readings of the same vital for blood pressure, pulse, temperature, respiration rate, and O2 saturation. For example, an anxious patient may have multiple blood pressure readings taken every 15 minutes for an hour.

The recording of multiple vitals can be attached to a vitals visit performed by front-end staff or to a regular encounter with a provider.

For front-end staff, from the WorkDesk , under Data Entry, click Vitals Without Provider, and find the patient.

For providers, from the WorkDesk, click Vitals Entry and select the encounter from the list.

In the Structured Examinations list, choose Vitals Multiple.

For more information, see Entering multiple vitals and Configuring multiple vitals entry.

Investigation reports from the following facilities are now available in the Documents tab.

Endoscopy reports from Fraser Health Authority

Clinical & Systems Transformation reports from Vancouver Coastal, Providence Health and PHSA Health Authorities

Height on adult charts

Users suggested this new feature as an idea on the Wolf community portal: Height on adult chart

You can now see the height of adult patients (20+) when you hover your mouse over the weight in the patient banner.

Head circumference in general visit templates

Users suggested this new feature as an idea on the Wolf community portal: Head Circumference Needs to be Added to the General Template

You can now enter the head circumference in the General Visit SOAP exam template (in addition to vitals entry (F6) window).

Other enhancements

When scheduling recurring appointments or courses, you can now choose a Biweekly option for appointments every two weeks.

Mammograms now appear as a procedure type when entering preventive care results for male patients.

The Maternity Patients Registered list now excludes inactive patients by default. See Viewing maternity patients registered to a provider.

When viewing the list of external consultants, you can now view inactive consultants. In the list of consultants, an (I) indicator appears if a provider is inactive.

When searching for external consultants, you can now search for inactive ones. Select the Include Inactive check box. In the list of consultants, inactive ones appear with an (I) indicator before their name. When you view their details, the date when they became inactive in your system is included. See Managing consultants from configuration.

In British Columbia, when editing an incomplete WorkSafeBC form, you can now edit the Attending Physician. This is useful when one provider starts the form and another provider completes and submits it later. See WorkSafeBC visits.

We improved the performance of loading electronic signatures within SMART forms.

National forms

British Columbia forms

Saskatchewan form