What is ChartSync?
ChartSync allows you to view data from external care sites, including hospitals on other EHRs, pharmacies, and more. Through automation or with a single click, you can easily add relevant information to the patient's chart without leaving your existing workflow. Data from external sources that is not automatically added to the chart is displayed in the ChartSync Panel for review and is not part of the patient chart until you choose to add it.
As a part of our ChartSync initiative for external data, we're making it easier to identify when new entries in a patient's Medications List were added from information received from Medication Fill History Downloads.
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Previously: When athenaOne received updated medication information from Medication Fill History Downloads, this information automatically appeared in the patient's Active Medications List regardless of the quality of information introduced. When this occurred, providers had difficulty determining where additions had occurred and spent a significant amount of effort cleaning up a patient's Active Medications List.
Now: When athenaOne receives new medication information from an external source, it evaluates the quality of the data and only adds the information to the patient's Active Medications List if it meets specific criteria. Any external medication that fails to meet data quality standards now appears in the new ChartSync Panel, where you can add an entry to a patient's Active or Historical Medications List, if desired, or dismiss it.
Benefits
We're making these changes to:
Allow you to easily view and add relevant clinical information from other facilities into your patient’s chart.
Make it easier for you to understand what’s happening with patients in other care settings and provide the best patient experience.
Save you time on data reconciliation with automation and data quality standards.
Limitations
At this time, this feature is not available for Hospitals & Health Systems, including those organizations that have an ambulatory department.
In addition, the new ChartSync experience is not available in athenaOne mobile. If a new medication is automatically added to the Active Medications List, a notification appears in the athenaOne mobile chart, and providers can view the source of the data.
We plan to expand support for athenaOne mobile and Hospitals & Health Systems in a future release.
How automatically reconciled medication data appears
athenaOne evaluates the quality of the Medication Fill History Download information received and only performs automatic updates if the following criteria are met:
- For new medications: Entries not yet listed in a patient’s Active or Historical Medications Lists must include the Medication Name, NDC, Sig, Quantity, Unit, and the Prescriber to automatically appear in the Active Medications List.
- For existing medications: Fill updates for entries already appearing in a patient’s Active or Historical Medications Lists must have the Medication Name, Quantity, and Unit to be automatically added to the Active Medications List.
If a new medication is automatically added to the Active Medications List, a blue dot appears on the new medication entry, alerting providers to this update to the list. If you click on a medication, it shows the source of the data and when it was automatically reconciled.
The blue dot persists on the medication entry for the department the user is logged in to until the patient encounter is closed. If the active medication is moved to the historical list, the blue dot displays until the encounter is closed. A blue dot does not appear for fill updates to existing medications.
Note
You can configure Medication Fill History Download to include claim data from pharmacy benefit managers in addition to pharmacy fill data. By default, claim data does not surface in ChartSync and is not automatically added to the patient chart. To include claims data in the Medication Fill History Download, contact the CSC to disable the Exclude Claims Data from Medication History Download setting.
What is the ChartSync Panel?
Use the ChartSync Panel to manually reconcile medications data from external sources. The ChartSync Panel is available in the Intake, Chart, and Exam tabs, both during and outside of an encounter.
How do I know if there are medications to manually reconcile?
When medication data from an external source is available for manual reconciliation, either in ChartSync or in the legacy data reconciliation tool, an orange alert bar appears to the left of the Medications tab of the Intake checklist and the patient chart. At the top of the Medications List, a View medications from other sources link also appears with an orange alert bar.
The orange alert bar displays until all medications data from external sources is reconciled in ChartSync and the legacy data reconciliation tool. Data is considered reconciled in the ChartSync Panel when it is added to the patient's chart or moved to the Dismissed list.
You will need to reconcile medications from other sources through the legacy data reconciliation tool (by clicking the More medications to reconcile link at the top of the ChartSync Panel) instead of in ChartSync:
For more information on the legacy data reconciliation tool, see User Guide — Data Reconciliation.
Note
ChartSync manual reconciliation is not certified to § 170.315(b)(2) Clinical information reconciliation and incorporation. The legacy data reconciliation tool will continue to be certified to (b)(2). For details on how to satisfy the HIE: Support Electronic Referral Loops by Receiving & Reconciling Health Information measure, please see the measure satisfaction guide on the Quality Help Center.
What displays in the ChartSync Panel?
When you click the View medications from other sources link at the top of a chart tab, the ChartSync Panel displays:
- Medication name
- Sig
- Source
- Last Fill Date
You can click a medication in the ChartSync Panel to view more details such as the prescriber, quantity and unit, if it's provided by the sender.
Medications remain on the Incoming tab for 18 months. If no action is taken to reconcile a medication, the medication will be automatically removed from the ChartSync Panel.
How to use the ChartSync Panel
To manually reconcile medication data in ChartSync
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Click the View medications from other sources link at the top of the Medications chart tab.
Review the information in the Incoming section. You can click on the medication to view all available information for the fill.
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Use one of these action buttons, which appear when you hover your cursor over an item:
— Move the medication to the Dismissed list. You can view the Dismissed list by clicking the tab at the top of the panel. When you dismiss a medication, it does not appear for action again unless it changes. If an item was dismissed incorrectly, you can move it back to the Incoming list.
— Add the medication to the Active Medications List. When you add an item to the patient's chart, it is removed from the ChartSync Panel.
— Add the medication from ChartSync to the Historical Medications List.
How manually reconciled medication data appears
Medications manually added to the Medication List or dismissed from the ChartSync Panel are identified with a blue ring icon to draw attention to changes manually made by users to the patient's medications.
Click an entry to expand it and review medication details as needed, including who added or dismissed that medication.
Important
Once you sign the latest encounter, the blue dots or rings indicating newly added medications no longer appear. However, these indicators appear for other departments that have not yet reviewed updates from external sources or activity from this encounter.
Dismissed medications
The Dismissed tab shows which user dismissed each medication and when it was dismissed. The number to the right of the Dismissed tab indicates the number of newly dismissed medications in the tab.
Once a medication has been moved to the Dismissed tab, you can select a reason for dismissing it (Duplicate, Not applicable to patient, Incorrect/Incomplete data, Other).
Medications remain on the Dismissed tab for 18 months before automatically being removed. If a medication is dismissed, it will continue to be dismissed and not reappear on the Incoming tab when imported from external sources as long as it matches on all data points.
If a medication was dismissed in error, you can click to return it to the Incoming tab.