Allscripts Enterprise EHR - OID SSMT Fundamentals

Q & A

Are you planning on covering flowsheets?

Not on our OID Webcast series, but we have discussed hosting a webinar for flowsheets. I'll make note of you request.

Will Order Syncing be covered?

There will be a Webinar specifically for Order Synchronization in March.

Can you user SSMT to copy from the Prod environment to test to keep systems in sync?

This depends on the volume and nature of data involved. If items are built in one enviroment, then copied into another environment, SSMT is a good option, but if items are being modified, and those modifications migrated with SSMT, make sure the systems are in sync before hand. If the systems are not in sync, the new rows could error out OR create duplicates that you don't want. For instance, if your Requested Performing Locations dictionary names were the slightly different in environments (Hospital Laboratory vs. Hospital Lab), an SSMT load into one environment would work, but would error out on the other.

In a practical sense, if you need to add one item, wouldn't you just add it in the dictionary? (*referring to the fact that the presenter created a single orderable using SSMT)

Yes, that would be an efficient and simpler way to do it. In this case, I just used a single entry into SSMT for training purposes.

Checking 'Inactive' drives the OID Mode in the dictionay to flip from 'Active' to 'No Longer Needed', but changing the OID Mode status to 'No Longer Used' does not flip the 'Inactive' flag?

Correct. I don't know if this is a bug. Another note regarding this is that I mentioned during the webinar that a possible entry into the OID Mode column is 'No Longer User'. This is incorrect. Instead, the entry is 'Inactive'.

What did you say about the 'Show Column Headers'? Don't use it at all OR don't have it checked when loading?

I advised that it is very useful when extracting, but when loading rows, I advise making sure it is unchecked. It doesn't cause an issue 100% of the time, but there is some reason to believe that it could cause an issue. Just a minor safety measure.

Regarding pulling an extract, you advised strongly that an extract be pulled and saved, but then said that once the 'Load' button is clicked, there is no going back. Can't you reload the saved copy to undo the previous errant load?

Depending on the data loaded, this 'original copy' can be used to 'undo' the problem load. But in some cases, it will only serve to represent what was originally in the system beforehand so the original state data is not lost (or only available via database backup). Note** Don't just automatically reload the original saved extract. You'l want to consider what data was overwritten/created and if this category load will fix the issue, not fix the issue or worse, compound the issue. ====We had someone paste a load into SSMT, but it pasted onto the 2nd row, leaving the first row blank. This caused significant data issues. Do you know what happened?==== I don't have a technical reason to explain why it caused issues through the whole system. In this specific case it was a User/Provider load and the result was that all user's were locked out of the system until it was undone. When navigating to the SSMT window, it will sometimes automatically position the cursor in the 2nd row. It needs to be 2nd nature to make sure the cursor begins in the top row, 1 position.

Is this the only tool used in Allscripts for Mass Updating?

There is Content Mover, but in terms of day-to-day data interaction, SSMT is more robust with manipulating and interacting with the data.

How much of this functionality actually gets implemented and maintained by Allscripts customers?

It varies, but we're seeing more and more clients take advantage of the more specific advantages v11 Orders offer. The workflow generation (hold for/needs info), broad range of defaults, and other features are getting more attention as organizations are settling into their v11 environments.