Friday, September 14, 2007

Changing Media For Purposes of Faster and Better Distribution

Just as every patient is given a medical record number, every file is given a unique file name. A report might be named FILENAME.123 or 12345678.ABC

  • Most digital dictation systems assign each job a four-digit job number.


  • Most doctors have a four-digit author identification number.


  • Most Medical Record Departments use one- or two-digit numbers to differentiate the various report types being coded for dictation.


If appropriate variables could be used to create the file name for each report, then it would be easy to sort reports using computer wild cards like [?] or [*].
Using the digital dictation system run by "H" Hospital, suppose we create each report's file name using three marker fields:
  • job number

  • author identification number

  • report type.


This way, a discharge summary (work type #55) dictated by B. J. Mears, M.D. (author identification #5662), that was assigned job number 3264 by the digital dictation system, could receive the following file name:

32645662.H55


If a computer operator wanted to search a particular directory for all reports generated by Dr. Mears and copy those reports to a special subdirectory (an electronic mailbox for all reports that were to be sent to Dr. Mears), he could use a command like [COPY ????5662.*] with the output being directed to Dr. Mears' subdirectory on the hard drive.

If the computer could be programmed to perform this task every 24 hours, then all files within a certain directory that had been generated by Dr. Mears could automatically be copied to Dr. Mears' personal subdirectory.



Next: Automated Sorting

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