How to Create and Check-in a Patient

How do I create a new patient?

If the patient has never visited your hospital before, you can create a new patient by starting with a New Admission.

You can also start a new admission for an existing patient without looking them up first.

Video Demo: Navigating to the Admission Screen and Searching

If the client says that they previously created an appointment over the phone, you can find it from the Admission Search screen.  Fill in any portion of the search fields that you know, and then click the Search button.

One effective combination is searching by the patient's name, which in VetView is the Animal ID, and the client's last name.  You can also ask for other information, such as the hospital unit that they scheduled the appointment with.

A list of all the patients that match the search terms that you ended will load below.  Click on the PA number to load the previously entered PA for the patient.

How do I find a patient who already has an appointment?

Video Demo: How to Enter Demographics Onto an Admission

To created a new Pre-Admission form for a patient, whether the patient is new to the hospital or has visited before, cick on the New Admission button.

How do I create a new PA?

A blank PA Screen will load.

From this screen, you can either find an existing patient, or start adding in the information needed to make a new patient.  

How do I add a patient?

Click on the plus sign on the Patient Card to begin adding a new patient or finding an existing one.

The Find/Add Patient window will load.  This screen lets you look up any existing patients, or add a new one by entering in the patient information and clicking Save.

For example, to find a patient named Smokey whose owner's last name is Atsume, you can enter in those two pieces of information.  Any matches will be picked up and display to the right of the form, under Search Results.

Double click on the matching patient.  You will need to verify that the rest of the information is correct - VetView will try to help you find the correct match, but if it's a common patient name and a common last name, you may need to enter the client's address or phone number to get the precise match.

Once you have double clicked or entered the minimum information and clicked Save, the PA Screen will return with the Patient Card filled out.

How do I link an owner to a patient?

Once you have added a patient to a PA, you can start filling in the client information.

Alternately, you can start with the client/owner information, and use that to find a list of patients, if the patient has visited before.  Some schools find this method preferable to avoid accidentally creating a duplicate patient.

Click on the green Plus sign to enter a new owner or find an existing one.

The New Client window will load.  This window looks very similar to the new patient window, and like the new patient window, allows you to search for an existing client and loads potential matches along the right hand side. 

The minimum information needed to save a new client is the name, but we strongly recommend obtaining an address and phone number to ensure adequate billing information.

After you double click the client's name, or click on the Save button after entering new information, the Owner information will appear on the Owner Card.

How do I add an RDVM and a clinic?

How do I add an RDVM?

On the RDVM card, click on the green plus sign to load your list of existing RDVMs or to enter a new one.

Like the Patient and Owner cards, a search form will load.   The RDVM lookup screen also includes a special list of results on the left, that contains any RDVMs that were previously linked to the client if they had other patients who visited before.

Once an RDVM has been added, either by double clicking the links on the left or the right or by clicking on Save, the RDVM card will appear.

How do I know which RDVM is the primary?

Video Demo: Indicating that the Referring Veterinarian is also the Primary Veterinarian for the Patient

For patients who were referred to your hospital by multiple veterinarians, you will need to follow your hospital's policy to determine the primary RDVM. 

For example, if a patient has a regular small practice clinic for annual visits, but the Main Reason happened during the weekend and the client initially went to an emergency clinic, then both the original small practice clinic veterinarian and the emergency clinic veterinarian could be considered RDVMs. 

You can add both veterinarians and clinics, and grant a release of information for RDVM information to both.  Always follow your hospital's policy when you are in doubt!

What is the difference between an RDVM and a Clinic?

For practices that have multiple DVMs, the clinic will be the business that each RDVM works at.  For example, a Banfield location may have several DVMs on staff.  By adding both an RDVM and a Clinic to a patient, you will automatically build an association between that RDVM and the clinic for any future patients. 

How do I add a Clinic?

If a clinic did not automatically load with the selected RDVM, you can add it like any other client by clicking the plus sign on the Clinic card.

Note that the Practice Owner may be different from the RDVM, depending on the clinic and the case.  To add a new clinic, you will only need a Business name and Address.

Once saved, the Clinic card will appear with the business name visible.

Video Demo: How to Add Contacts Prior to Patient Admission

If you need to add a spouse, pre-purchaser, leasee, hauler, trainer, or anyone else to the admission as a contact, you can do so even before they ever get to the hospital by using the contacts tab on the admission screen. 

How do I add other contacts to the PA?

How do I add additional contacts?

If a client is already in the system (such as other RDVMs/Clinics) you can add them by looking them up via the Additional Contacts list.

Each contact also has a right click menu available, that will allow you to turn on and off the settings.

Video Demo: Completing the Required Information to Check a Patient In

Once you have successfully identified the patient, client, referring vet, and clinic, you will need to add in a few other pieces of information to schedule an appointment.

How do I know what kind of appointment to schedule?

Admitting Unit:  This is the service that the animal will actually see.  (For a unit to be available in this list, it must be a "Receiving Unit" in your Hospital Setup. If a unit is missing, contact your administrator to get it added.)

Appointment Type:  These are a list of available appointments for your unit.  They can range from a standard outpatient appointment or annual visit, to a specialized appointment for surgeries or therapy.  These are defined at your hospital, and you should follow the school's policy for what kind of appointment to set each admission as.

Main Reason:  This is the primary reason the patient needs to visit your hospital.  This is a free form field, so you can write a complete sentence, or keep it to a few key words such as "seizures" or "excess drooling."  Follow your unit's policy on how to describe the main reason, as this is a searchable field and common key words can make finding episodes easy later on.

At this point, you have enough information to Save the admission and schedule an appointment. 

How do I schedule the appointment?

Click on the Schedule Appointment button.  This will take you to VetView's Schedule screen, with the selected Admitting Unit pre-loaded as a calendar.

Video Demo: Adding a Pre-Admission Document with RDVM records to the Admission

How do I add a Pre-Admission form?

If your school has a Document of type Pre-Admission set up, you may have a button that displays on the screen that says "Pre-Admission."  This form can be customized to include only the information that your school wants before the patient visits. 

To start filling out a pre-admission document, click on this button.   A list of all available Pre-Admission documents will load in VetView's Document Search window. 

How do I add a Pre-Admission form?

Double click the document you want to add.  This will add a new tab to the PA screen called Pre-Admission.

VetView builds an episode log as you add information onto an appointment, and/or move stuff around.  The Episode Log contains automatic information, such as added contacts or when a patient was checked in.  You can also use this to add episode alerts.

This Episode Log can be accessed by going to the Episode Log tab on the Admission screen.

How do I add alerts or comments to a PA?

Video Demo: Adding Comments and/or Alerts onto an Episode

From the Episode Log tab, click on the Add button to open the Add Episode Comment window.

Check the Alert box to indicate that there needs to be an alert associated with the episode, not just a comment.  The Alert Type is a list of alerts defined by your hospital.  This is a "smart search" box so you can type in a keyword and then select the alert you need from a shortened list.

Type in your comment, and click save, which will add a new entry to the log.  If the entry was identified as an alert, it will highlight the line in pink. 

Where are these alerts displayed?

Once you have added your alert, anyone navigating to the admission screen, or later to the patient record will see the alerts. 

Like the episode log, certain alerts will display automatically.  For example, if there is an outstanding prescription that has not been filled, it will show in the Alert box and then automatically drop off when the prescription has been issued.

What is the difference between an Episode Alert, a Patient Alert, and a Client Alert?

All three alerts can be important your hospital's processes, so it will be up to your specific policies how certain alerts are assigned.  

Patient Alerts are specific only to this patient but will be important for any future episodes.  For example, if a patient is allergic to medication.

Client Alerts are general for the client for all patients.  Clinics and RDVMs especially can have hundreds of patients associated with them, but the RDVM information may still need to be displayed on every patient's admission.  Your accounting department can also utilize client alerts for billing notices.

Episode Alerts are specific to this client and patient, for this episode only.  These alerts are also different from the Main Reason