transcript

transcript  MassPAT Tutorial #5: Patient Search

MassPAT Tutorial #5

Patient Search (healthcare audience)

Overview: The Patient Search tutorial will demonstrate how a Massachusetts healthcare professional or delegate user can conduct patient searches in MassPAT, the proprietary system called PMP AWARxE. Note that other MassPAT tutorials address user account creation for prescribers, pharmacists, and delegates. This tutorial, we’ll cover setting up patient search criteria, reviewing and exporting search results, and conducting a patient search when unsure about the spelling of a patient’s name.

To begin, we’ll log in as a prescriber user type, since the search features are essentially the same as for other healthcare professional user types.

Logging in directs you to your user Dashboard. To navigate to the patient search page, we select Menu in the blue header bar at the top of the screen. This opens menu items, organized by several headings. Under the RxSearch heading, we will select Patient Request.

Before we do that, notice the Bulk Patient Search navigation item. We’ll touch on that useful feature later in this demonstration. Another MassPAT tutorial addresses that feature in more detail.

Okay, let’s go to the Patient Request page.

This page presents form fields for inputting information for your patient search.

First, let’s look at one of the search features here. Notice the PMP Interconnect Search checklist toward the bottom of the page. Here is where you control which additional states to include in your patient search results, providing the states are available to share data.

Here you can check the states you want to include for a particular search. You also have the option of setting defaults for states to include in all your patient searches. For instance, you might want to always include neighboring states if they are available. To do that, navigate to the default settings page by selecting your username in the blue header bar, and then selecting the Default PMPi States item in the drop-down menu.

On the Default InterConnect PMPs page, check the states you want as your defaults. Then select the Update Defaults button on the right. When you do this, you will see a “Success! Default States Updated” message.

Now you can navigate back to your Patient Request page by selecting Menu on the blue header bar, and then selecting Patient Request as we did before.

Back on the Patient Request page, notice that your default states are now checked off to be included in all of your searches. Of course, you can always uncheck default states for particular searches.

Let’s now set up a patient search. First, we will complete the three required fields under Patient Info, indicated by a red asterisk: First Name, Last Name, and Date of Birth. Notice also that you have the option of searching on the partial spelling of the patient’s name—for example, if you are not sure how the name is spelled. We’ll review that later.

Note that if you are conducting searches as a delegate user authorized under more than one primary account holder, this page will include a drop-down list where you will need to select which supervisor you are conducting this particular search on behalf of.

Next, notice that the range for Prescription Fill Dates defaults to 1 year from the current date. That’s because the system only supports searching prescription histories going back a single year. If you wish, you can narrow the date range for a search.

In the Patient Location section, you can refine your search by completing the non-required fields for address; however, this is not recommended.

OK, now we can select the Search button to run the search.

The results or Patient Report page presents information about the patient’s prescription history. Below the patient’s name is a quick summary, followed by tables of more detailed information about the patient’s prescriptions, prescribers, and dispensers or pharmacies. Notice that we can expand or minimize each of these sections. Let’s look at them one by one.

When we expand the section with information about the patient, we see a list of linked records. Because we did not specify an address in the search criteria, the results include records for a patient with the same name and date of birth listed at various addresses. Each of these is listed with a unique ID number, which we will also see in the prescriptions table. Another important feature to notice is that the system’s search algorithm is designed to be somewhat expansive by including near matches on the first name. Here we see variations of Edward, such as Ed and Eddy.

If PMPi states were included in the search, the page will load with Massachusetts results followed by data from the networked states. In this example, we have no records for Edward Maguire in networked states outside of Massachusetts.

Finally, under the list of linked records, we see the search criteria that we used to generate this Patient Report. If we wanted to change the search criteria, we could click on the Refine Search link next to the Patient Report title. This would return us to the Patient Request page, where we could adjust our previous search selections.

The Summary section provides counts of the patient’s prescriptions, prescribers, and pharmacies. We’ll see detailed information in the tables below. Two other data points in the Summary are:

  • A count of the patient’s private pay transactions—that is, payment by cash, check, debit or credit card rather than commercial insurance;
  • And a count of total morphine milligram equivalents or MME for prescriptions that are still active. This is based on the total quantity and days’ supply shown in the prescriptions table.

Now let’s look at the Prescriptions section. This table includes such information as what drug was prescribed to this patient, when the script was written and filled, who wrote the prescription, and what pharmacy filled it. The default sort order is by prescription-fill date, starting with the most recent. However, you can re-sort the table by clicking on any column header. For example, you might want to select the ID number column header to sort the table by the patient matches found—or sort the table by type of drug prescribed.

For certain fields, you can view more information by moving your mouse over an individual table cell to open a popup.

The Prescribers section presents a table with a list of prescribers who wrote the prescriptions found in the search, along with their addresses and contact information. By default, the prescribers are listed in alphabetical order. Again, we can re-sort the table by clicking on any column header.

Finally, the Dispensers section presents key information about the pharmacies that filled the prescriptions identified in the patient search.

In addition to viewing the Patient Report online, you can also export it as a PDF—or as a CSV file that can then be opened in Excel. To export, simply select the Download PDF or Download CSV icon at the top right part of the page.

In addition to providing all the results data, the downloaded file will include the patient’s name and date of birth, the date range for the prescription history records found, and a date stamp for when the MassPAT search was generated.

Now let’s go back to the Patient Request page to consider a situation where we are unsure about the correct spelling of a patient’s name. To get there, we can select the Refine Search link or the Back arrow.

You’ll remember that earlier we noted the checkbox option here for searching on the partial spelling of the patient’s name. Now let’s try it out by inputting partial first and last names, selecting the checkboxes, and also inputting the other required data element—the date of birth. For a partial name, you must input a minimum of three letters.

Note that when you select the Partial Spelling option, the multi-state search feature is unavailable, so it disappears from the bottom of the page.

We will not change the date of birth. Okay, let’s run the search.

The system first displays a list of possible matches to the partially spelled name and presents a link to refine the search. In this case, the system found just the one patient match and that looks like the correct street address for our patient. So let’s select that record and run the report.

Here again we see the Patient Report for this patient. We can explore or export the results just as we did before.

Instead, let’s continue on to another important search feature of the MassPAT system.

As mentioned earlier in this demonstration, the MassPAT system has an option for searching on multiple patients at the same time—the so-called Bulk Patient Search feature. A doctor’s office might want to use this feature, for example, to generate a list of patients scheduled for appointments the next day who might be prescribed pain medication.

We’ll explore this feature briefly. Another MassPAT tutorial provides detailed instructions. To get to the page for conducting a Bulk Patient Search, we’ll select Menu from the blue header bar and Bulk Patient Search under the RxSearch heading.

Notice that the Bulk Patient Search page presents two approaches. In the Manual Entry approach, you enter patient information and then select the green Add button to enter information for each additional patient to be searched. In the File Upload approach, you upload a spreadsheet with patient information, validate the file format, and then run the bulk search.

With either approach, you need to give a Group Name to your bulk search, so that the system can keep track of it.

As when setting up a search on an individual patient, you have the option to narrow the date range for the search from the default of one year—or include additional states in the search.

Notice too that there’s a tab for Bulk Patient History. Here the system keeps track of your bulk searches so you can retrieve or refresh the search results—and so you can monitor bulk searches conducted by your delegates.

Now, let’s very briefly touch on a feature that allows a prescriber to search on scripts that have been written within the past year under their DEA number. This feature is useful if a prescriber suspects that someone has stolen their script pad or DEA number and is writing unauthorized prescriptions.

To run this type search, the prescriber would go to the Menu and select MyRx under the RxSearch heading. On the MyRx Request page, the prescriber would input a date range and, optionally, a specific drug name and then run the search. This would generate a list of prescriptions written, accompanied by patient and pharmacy information.

To wrap up, let’s go back to the user Dashboard. Here’s where you have access to searches you’ve recently run, in case you want to go back to the results—by selecting the patient name. Also, if you are a primary account holder—for instance, a prescriber or a pharmacist—that has delegates authorized by you to run searches in the system, their searches will be listed here in a separate table.

Finally, to close out of the system, you must log out. Click on your name in the blue header bar and click on the green Log Out button.

Okay, this concludes our demonstration. You should now be able to run prescription history searches in MassPAT on individual patients and groups of patients, know how to explore and re-sort the search results, and be able to export your search results. Should you need assistance in using the system, call the Appriss help desk phone number that appears at the top right of every page of the system.