by Ed Bishop
MEDITECH’s 6.x role based technology appears intended to simplify the clinical user’s workflow. As a customer, you can define the menu options up to the point a user selects a patient. After patient selection, MEDITECH decided the menu and the workflow choices. Keeping things consistent and simple seem to be key to the new workflow design.
Users may notice that in any care area, the right hand menu of the FOCUS 6.x system is the same for all users and all patients. Rather than have menu items appear and disappear based on access, menu items are enabled and disabled based on access.
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Up to this point, a user can hop between different patients and different applications, though MEDITECH allows customers to define the maximum number of patient charts that can be open at one time on an individual client using parameters. Beyond this point, the rules of the MEDITECH screens become a little more application specific and structured, and it appears that each area of the application is evaluated when designing the screen content.
Parent Process
The first point of entry of the clinical application is generally started as a parent process. The parent process allows the user to maintain the open parent window while performing specific care area duties on a patient. The user can refer to the parent window for additional information or for additional patients without needing to leave the current detailed process. The PCS Status Board and EDM Tracker are examples of parent processes.
Detail screens can be launched from the parent process, and user access to the parent while in-process is allowed. These secondary detail screens can be launched in non-modal or modal fashion.
Non-Modal Child Process
The non-modal child process allows user interaction in the parent process while the non-modal child is running. Examples of non-modal child processes are the PCS Worklist and the Plan of Care Entry screen. While the non-modal child is active for a given patient, the caregiver can return to the parent and the PCS Status Board as well as open additional charts.
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Modal Child Process
The modal child process is generally a sub-screen that displays pertinent detail about a single item on the main parent screen. In the modal-child process, access to the main parent is allowed in view-only. In Windows fashion, the modal child can be dragged to the side for data review on the parent, but further activity on the parent window is disabled until the user exits the modal child.
(Notice the menu buttons are disabled. They are re-enabled when the modal child process closes.)
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Stacked Screen
There is a fourth screen choice, known to MEDITECH as the stacked screen. Unlike the Status Board to Worklist parent/child relationship noted above, the stacked screen takes over the main body of the screen in view. In these instances, the previous screen is not visible until the user exits the stacked screen.
The placement of the stacked screen in MEDITECH’s 6.x environment seems to be necessitated by the application. Stacked screen display when it is logical to do so.
The Plan of Care screen shown below is an example of a stacked screen. The detail of a single item on the plan of care displays fully. There is no clinical reason to maintain the previous while viewing this detail, and it is therefore presented as a stacked screen.
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By the involving the stacked screen, MEDITECH has kept the number of jobs listed in the Windows task manager to a manageable few.
It appears that MEDITECH put a lot of thought into the design of the 6.x Advanced Technology screens. I’m sure that MEDITECH believes that their design of screen and workflow will suit all customer’s needs. I wonder if you agree?
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