Fields Maintenance Screens

Introduction

All data entry fields that appear in the Form's list of data entry fields (on the form's "Main" screen) must first be defined in the Fields table.  ChartNet comes with a pre-defined list of the most commonly used fields, but the System Manager is free to create new fields as required.  

The Fields table contains a record for each field and defines the characteristics of the field, for example, the field length, whether or not the field is required, etc.  This section describes the Fields Maintenance application that is used to add, edit, and delete fields.

Setting up New Sites

When setting up a new site, it is recommended that you create new fields for the medical record number, account number, and any other field that might have slightly different characteristics compared to other sites.  For example, the medical record number for one site might have a length of 6, but might be 8 for another site.  When naming new fields, prefix the field name with the site code in order to make easy to identify the field.  For example, if creating a new medical record number field for site 120, use 120_MRUN for the field name.  Fields that do not have different characteristics (e.g. PTNAME) do not have to have new fields created for each site - they can be shared across all sites.

User-defined Fields vs Database Fields

There are two categories of fields:  Database and User-defined.  Database fields are fields that are already formally part of the database.  For example PTNAME, MRUN, ACCTNO, VISITDT are all formal database fields.  Database fields also include fields that you create that "point" to formal database fields.  For example, if you create a field called "120_MRUN" and it "points" to the MRUN field in the database, then it is considered a database field.  Database fields are usually specified in bracketed fields with a prefix of "R.".  For example, the bracketed field for inserting the patient name is "[R.PTNAME            ]".

ChartNet's database also includes extra fields that are formal database fields, but can be used to store special data that needs to be captured.  For example, DOCTOR1, DOCTOR2, USER1, USER2, USER3 are all extra database fields that you can point new fields to.  For example, let's say you want to capture the surgeon code.  Since ChartNet does not have a formal database field for "surgeon", you could create a new field called "120_SURGDR" and "point it" to the "DOCTOR1" database field.  Then you could add a bracketed field to the header section using "[R.DOCTOR1.D.DOCNAME  ] to print the surgeon's name.

User-defined fields, on the other hand, are fields that you create that do not have a formal database field associated with them or are not appropriate to point to any of the "extra" database fields.  For example, if you create a user-defined field called 120_SSN to capture the patient's social security number and leave the "database field" blank on the Fields Maintenance Main screen, it will be treated as a user-defined field.  User-defined fields are specified in bracketed fields with a prefix of "U.".  For example, "[U.120_SSN    ]".