Ramon-
We also have SoftPath.  When the history cards are pulled, they are
entered into the Old Case database.  It is a great idea to hire someone
to just enter history cards into the database but our company will not
hire any extra staff. I was thinking that the secretaries could print
the surgical worksheets first and check to see if the patient had any
previous old cases entered. They can determine from that which patients
have already been looked up and would only need to check on the patients
with no old cases listed.  We are just starting to throw around some
ideas.  What is your criteria for pulling history cards?  Do you still
look-up every patient (that you received specimens on) a daily basis? 

Thanks, Michelle

-----Original Message-----
From: Ramon Ombao [mailto:mjrjcmrt@sympatico.ca]
Sent: Monday, February 19, 2001 5:52 PM
To: Fuller, Michelle
Subject: Re: Patient history cards


Michelle,

What system do you have right now?
Our's is Softpath-SCC.
It allows you to enter the diagnosis of the surgical case # from the
part history card of the patient.  Our path clerical staff  pulls out
the cards daily from our files  based on our accession log which shows
patient's name
and MRN (medical record #). These are then  attached to the requisition
forms  and once the pathologists has signed out the  case they enter
these
diagnosis from the cards to the system  This cases are consecutively
re-assigned an Old Case #  95-OC-101 as an example. What happens is it
assigns same year except
the case base become OC instead of S or SP. It then becomes part of the
patient's database . So when you pull any case # you'll be able to view
other case numbers.

Hope this is of help to you.

"Fuller, Michelle" wrote:

> Hello Everyone-
>
> We have been live on our computer system since 1995.  Daily, for every
> surgical case that we receive in the lab, we have to look in three
> different card files (due to the fact that we have merged with 2 other
> hospitals) to see if that patient has any previous history cards. (We
> average about 80-90 cases a day.)  Some of our Pathologist feel that
it
> is very important to have this available to them, others do not even
> look for past history.  In an effort to streamline our workflow, we
are
> interested in how other facilities handle this.
>
> Thanks in advance for any information.
>
> Michelle Fuller
> Histology Supervisor
> ACM Medical Laboratory, Inc.
> Rochester, NY 14624
>
> e-mail mfuller@acmlab.com