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System 6000: hints and tips for clinician

Searching addresses

To search for addresses when you have no house number simple put a % sign immediately before the street name i.e.

%high street

will bring up everyone that lives on high street

Adding to the clinician menu

Edit the sys6000.ini file, (make a backup first!). Put the & before the letter you want to "hot key".

Your entry will be something like:

UtilXX=&BradsReport|C:\MEDAPPS\S6000\S6REPMAN.EXE folder=custom\bradsreport

Below is an example of the "utilities" section of a sys6000.ini file

[Utilities]
Util1=&Address Book|C:\medapps\S6000\ADDRBOOK.EXE
Util2=Remo&ve Pt Lock Utility|C:\MEDAPPS\S6000\REMLOCK.EXE
Util3=S6 Report &Manager|C:\medapps\s6000\s6repman.exe
Util4=&Configuration Editor|C:\medapps\s6000\confedit.exe
Util5=&Formulary Editor|C:\medapps\s6000\Formulry.exe
Util6=&Query Editor|C:\medapps\s6000\queryed.exe
Util7=&Read Code Maintenance|C:\medapps\s6000\rmaint.exe
Util8=D&FEditor|C:\medapps\s6000\drug_ed.exe
Util9=S6&Word Processor|C:\medapps\S6000\S6WORD.EXE
Util10=Run Full &Patient Report|C:\MEDAPPS\S6000\S6REPMAN.EXE
folder=meditel\fp RPN1=PATIENTID RPV1=$patientid
Util11=&IOS Manager|C:\Medapps\S6000\IOSMAN.EXE
Util12=Home Visit Report|C:\MEDAPPS\S6000\S6REPMAN.EXE
folder=meditel\homevist RPN1=PATIENTID RPV1=$patientid
Util13=&hooks editor|C:\MEDAPPS\S6000\HOOKSED.EXE

Getting clinical data into mail merge templates - the NoteServer

The syntax of data fields which request clinical data is critical. Each different type of request has a default - and an expected method of calling which appears in the Patient.RDF below. However it can easily be changed. A sample word processing template which has clinical data is included in Appendix B (The standard referral template).

The rules are these:

  1. A field name by itself (if recognised) returns one instance (the first, or next if it has been called before) of a data type.
  2. Enclosing the field name in square brackets causes the template document to loop, recalling the noteserver until the noteserver returns nothing more.
  3. Appending the field name with a "+" symbol causes it to be opened up, so that the entries linked to any item identified by the field name are also returned. So, in the case of the "curproblem" current problem fieldname, "curproblem" by itself will return a single item, ("[curproblem]" will also return only a single item because there is at any one time only a single currently selected problem.) "curproblem+" will return the problem title first, but then the list of entries held under that problem heading.
  4. When a noteserver call finds nothing to return, then a "default" line is returned, which may be passed in from the document template. If no default is given, then the default default is "None".
  5. Text following an optional colon describes the format of the item to be returned. (see below)
  6. Text following an optional pipe | symbol describes the default text if no entries are found.

The list of field names for clinical data

curtreatment  Current medication \tab /S /M /D\par
curproblems  Current problems \tab /S /M /N /F\par
dorproblems  Dormant problems \tab /S /M /N /F\par
curproblem  The currently selected problem \tab /S /M /N /F\par
curreminder  Current reminders \tab /U /P /M /F\par
summary  All the items in the summary  depends on the type of item
sensitivity  The patient's sensitivities \tab /S /M
Severity: /V. /F\par
journal  The contents of the journal (filtered a little) depends on the type of item
unlinked  The contents of the unlinked problem  depends on the type of item

Formatting clinical data

The data returned by the noteserver can be optionally formatted, both in terms of how the components of any entry are laid out, and in terms of adding some crude RTF.

The key points are these:

  1. Most text in the format line is transposed "as is".
  2. A single uppercase character following a forward slash identifies a field - see the table below :
  3. A single lower case character following a forward slash identifies one of a limited number of text formatting commands, which will be replaced with RTF (see table below) 
  4. To create a space within the text, use an UNDERSCORE (_ ). Any real spaces mess it up.

Table of Entry components

ID  Component description
D  (Medication only) Dose
E  End date
F  Free text
M  Medical description (Rubric or term)
N  Numeric value (with units)
P  (Reminder only) Priority
R  Read code
S  Start date
U  (Reminder only) Due date
V  (Sensitivity only) Severity


Table of Text (RTF) formatting commands 

ID  Component description
t  Tab
n  New line
/  Forward slash
_  (Underscore) Space

The key points are these :

  1. Most text in the format line is transposed "as is".
  2. A single uppercase character following a forward slash identifies a field - see the table above.
  3. A single lower case character following a forward slash identifies one of a limited number of text formatting commands, which will be replaced with RTF (also above)
  4. To create a space within the text, use an UNDERSCORE ( _ ). Any real spaces mess it up.

From all that you can see that
/t/S_/M/n
means
<tab>Start date<space>Description<new line>

If this is accidentally in all upper case you will get
something unexpected like
<nothing?>Start date<space>Description Numeric

S6000 templates for Word

The file s:\meddata\s6000\report\formats\docs\s6merge.dot is the file that allows users to create S6000 templates from MS-Word. It needs to be placed in the MS-Word templates directory, and then open Word, and do file/new and choose this template. There are two buttons on the left of the toolbar, the leftmost one allows users to enter fields for mail-merge using dialogs similar to those in S6Word. The other one saves the template to the appropriate directory. 

To prevent s6merrge.dot from becoming the default template, change the template in Word menu tools/templates and addins to normal.dot

Length of recent patients picking list

The following line in the s6000.ini file controls the length of the recent patient's list (Watch the spaces), however, it can't be increased beyond 9.

[Recent Patient List] MRU count=6

Adding eBNF etc to the R mouse menu

add the following to your sys6000.ini file (make a backup first!)

[PopupMenu]
Item1=BNF|C:\medapps\s6000\qtrigger 2 $readcode3|M

This will cause a menu item called BNF to appear on the right mouse menu when you click on Medication items, the "|M" meaning medication only. The eBNF must be running, as this won't start it. For those who have more than one item on the right mouse menu, the "Item1" has to be incremented for each additional item.

[PopupMenu]
Item1=BNF|C:\medapps\s6000\qtrigger 2 $readcode3|M
item2=Flu|Addnote(65E..)
item3=tug on the web|c:\progra~1\intern~1\iexplore.exe www.tug.uk.com

SHIFT + F10 brings up the right click menu.

Warnings for Sophies

If you are referring to the messages that warn of unreferenced, or orphaned, questions, then this cannot be turned off. This is to warn of a guideline error, which could cause SOPHIE problems.

If you are referring to the check for all valid read codes in a guideline then the ini file setting is 

[Guidelines] 
CheckRC=0

Most sites will not have this, as it is for people wishing to author their own guidelines, and check that the read codes used in it are all in the database. The default setting is not to use this, and as a rule this should not be set. SOPHIE won't allow guidelines to write Read Codes that aren't in the database, an error message will be displayed if the guideline tries to.

Comments with s6000.ini files

This is just for those who like to edit their ini files.
The following in an ini file has an interesting effect, that may cause problems 

[paths] 
; commented out line 
Sophie=c:\medapps\s6000\sophie.exe ;this runs sophie

The line that starts with a semi-colon is commented out, and will not be read in by any application using the ini file. However, the line below it appears to have a comment at the end. In fact, because the comment is not at the start of the line, but after a correct entry, it is counted as part of that entry. So, in this instance, Sophie, when called from clinic/a hook, will run with a command line of ";this runs sophie", and anything else that has been added, by a hook/clinic. This may cause problems.

Altering the targets on the information toolbar buttons

A useful free way to access  the BNF on the Net: by editing the file \windows\sys6000.ini on a PC

Under Information Source - I edit:

Button3Title=eBNF
Button3URL=http://bnf.org/bnf/index.html

Obviously you adapt the other buttons to your requirements.

Summary tool

Some practices do not have a summary populated with adequate data due to problems with the migration or hooks. To correct this issue there is a tool that retrospectively examines the patient's notes and populates the summary accordingly.

The time taken to run this process varies according to the size of your database, but should take no more than a couple of hours. You only need to perform this process once.

To run the Summary Tool do the following:

Ensure all other users are logged out of the system.
On your UNIX console, log in as root.
Change into the following directory by typing : cd /medapps/s6000/bin and press ENTER.
Type: ./generate_summary and press ENTER.
The process now commences.
When complete, the system returns to the hash prompt.
Type Exit [enter] to logout

Note that the tool only works for "summary once" hooks.

Changing the registered GP globally

If you go into the configuration editor, and look at the Staff Details form, there is a button for "Transfer Patients" towards the bottom left. If you click this there will appear a utility to do this. Categories of patients can be transfered in one go, so all males with surnames starting A-M registered with Dr. B go to Dr. A, etc. There are a lot of options but they should all be documented, so once you have worked out what you want to do it should be quite quick to do.