Regular housekeeping is important for your clinical system. It can help to improve your own use of the system, and it can also aid and improve system performance.

 

This article tells you about our recommended housekeeping actions, such as deleting or archiving redundant resources, which will make using the Ardens resources for EMIS Web as streamlined as possible.

 

Clinical Templates and Protocols

The EMIS Web system, by design, does not allow the deletion of templates and protocols.  The likely reason for this is because these tools are the means by which data is added to patient records, and so they need to be preserved in the system.

 

Clinical templates and protocols can be deactivated or archived (and they can also be unarchived and (re)activated).

 

Before deactivating or archiving any resources, we suggest a discussion with all stakeholders in your practice to decide which templates and protocols are no longer required.  Then follow the steps below. Tidying up these resources in this way will avoid confusion among practice staff on which templates and protocols to use.

 

  • EMIS button > Configuration > Resource Publisher > Protocols and templates.
  • Locate the required template or protocol, or even a whole folder to deactivate or archive.
  • Right click on the item and select Status > Deactivate or Archive (or select the same options from the ribbon).


Deactivated templates or protocols remain visible in Resource Publisher but are greyed out, whereas archived templates and protocols are not visible (unless the Show Archived option is selected on the EMIS ribbon).  

 

Removing Clinical Templates from the Template Picker Screen

When selecting a template to use in a consultation, using the Run Template (or Data using Template) option, the user’s previous choices are listed in the Recently Used section on the left-hand side of the Template Picker screen.



Over time, this list can include templates that the user no longer needs or wishes to use, so it is good practice to carry out simple housekeeping of this list from time to time, to avoid the use of out of date or incorrect templates.

 

Use the following steps to achieve this from the Template Picker screen:


  • To remove a single template, right click on the template and select Remove.
  • To remove all templates and clear the list completely, so that you can rebuild again, right click on any template, and select Remove All.

 

This will only remove the templates from your individual list, not from the system!

 

Document Templates

As with other resources, over time, and without regular housekeeping, document templates can build up, potentially causing confusion to users, and contributing to slowness on the system.  We therefore suggest a regular discussion and review of document templates to benefit users and the system alike.

 

Document templates cannot be deleted, they can only be completed or archived.

 

Complete is used when you have finished creating a draft document, and it is ready to be published.  When housekeeping, you therefore only have the option of archiving a document template (or folder) to take them out of use from the care record.

 

  • EMIS button > Configuration > Resource Publisher > Document templates.
  • Locate the required document template, or even a whole folder to archive.
  • Right click on the item and select Status > Archive (or select the same option from the ribbon).



Tidying up the practice’s document templates means that when someone is looking for a template, there is less to look through and less time wasted in doing so.

 

If your practice is an Ardens Pro customer, this is of particular importance as there will be official versions of documents such as referral forms that you will be directed to use.

 

Removing Document Templates from the New Patient Letter Screen

When selecting a document template from the patient record (Add > Document > Create Letter), the New Patient Letter screen displays the user’s previous choices.



Over time, this list can retain the names of document templates that the user no longer needs or wishes to use, so once again, it is good practice to carry out simple regular housekeeping of this list to avoid the use of out of date or incorrect document templates.

 

Use the following steps to achieve this from the New Patient Letter screen:

  • Click on the spyglass in the bottom right corner.  This takes you to the Find Document Templates screen.



  • Click on the red cross to the right of a template you no longer need on your list. (There is no option to remove all).

 

This only removes templates from your individual list, not from the system!

 

Searches and Reports

We also strongly recommend housekeeping actions for searches and reports in Population Reporting.

 

First, you may wish to have a discussion with search folder owners, encouraging them to carry out the housekeeping actions below on the searches and folders for which they are responsible.

 

Any searches or reports that are no longer needed, or perhaps are duplicated, should be deleted from the system.  Doing so, helps users to be able to find what they need more easily.   There can also be a positive impact on system performance.

 

  • EMIS button > Reporting  > Population Reporting.
  • Locate the required individual search or report, or even a whole folder to delete.
  • Right click on the item and select Delete (or select the same option from the ribbon).



Please note – the Delete option is permanent!  Once deleted, you cannot get those searches, reports or folders back.

 

The process of deleting searches and reports can take some time, particularly if you are deleting a large quantity.  If you are experiencing problems or error messages whilst doing this, you could instead create a sub folder labelled ‘*DO NOT USE’.   Then, right click on the search or folder you were going to delete and select Cut and then Paste it into the *DO NOT USE folder, for deletion at a later date.

 

Ardens Diary Recall System Housekeeping

For practices wishing to activate and use the Ardens Diary Recall System, we recommend both initial and ongoing housekeeping to ensure the system works effectively. 

 

Please see our separate support article for further instructions. 


If you require any further assistance on the process above, please contact Ardens support on: [email protected]