Using the Status Board

Using the Status Board PCS Lesson 1

Objectives • Describe the PCS Status Board and list its uses • Demonstrate how to sort patient information by different headers • Recognize the different colors on the Status Board and what they mean • Demonstrate how to remove old patients and add new patients to your list • Demonstrate how to switch status boards when you float to another unit

From the main Meditech desktop, you can access the Status Board by clicking on the PCS Worklist icon.

This is the Status Board. This lesson will focus on organizing and understanding the information the status board provides. You will learn how to use the status board to document interventions in another lesson.

The patient header at the top of the screen contains the following information: Patient name, age, gender, height, weight, allergies, status, account number, medical record number, date of birth, and location. The patient header is always available to help you make sure you selected the right patient.

The middle section is referred to as the patient table. This is your patient list. We will learn how to add and remove patients from this list later in this lesson.

Note the menu displayed on the bottom of the status board. Each button represents a different task that may be completed from the status board. This menu will change in PCS depending on which screen or mode you are in.

The buttons on the right side of the screen allow you to move to different routines to carry out a variety of actions. We will learn more about these buttons in later lessons. No matter where you are in PCS, the right sided menu options will remain the same.

The picture you see in the upper right corner will match whatever screen you are on that is represented in the right side panel menu. For example, right now we are on the Status Board. The graphic in the right corner matches the graphic from the right side menu that says Status Board.

Let’s begin using the status board. In our scenario, you have just arrived at work and received your patient assignments. However, your current status board does not match your patient assignment.

Let’s update our list now by first removing the patients no longer under your care. You need to remove two patients for whom you are no longer responsible and add the two new patients that have been assigned today. The two patients that need to be removed are: Lisa Anderson and Red, Oetrain.

You will select each patient by pointing to the empty box to the left of the patient’s name and clicking once. When we do this, a checkmark will appear in the box.

Now that our two patients are selected, it is very easy to remove them from your list. Click on Remove from List at the bottom of the screen to remove the selected patients from your list.

Our patient list has been updated and the two patients have been removed. However, according to our patient assignment, we still need to add one patient to our list.

The are 2 primary methods for adding new patients to your status board. An easy way to locate your new patients is by using the Locations button located at the bottom of the screen. We will now see what happens when we click on this button.

A complete list of all the inpatient locations displays. Our patients are on U46 Surgical GYN. The scroll bar on the right can be used to move up and down the list of patient locations. We will now click on the Surgical GYN location to select it. Scroll Bar

All admitted patients assigned to U 46 Surgical GYN appear. Adding patients to your list is done in a similar manner to removing them. You will select each new patient by clicking in the box to the left of the patient’s name. We will select the patient we want to add to our list now.

With our patient now selected, we need to add her to our list. This is a two-step process. First we must select Add To List from the bottom of this screen.

The screen will refresh and then we will click on My List to return to our list of patients.

Now, our status board is updated and displays our current list of patients. Let’s take a look at the second way to add patients to our list.

If the patient has not be added to your unit census yet by admitting or they are off the unit and you still wish to look up results or document, you can click on the Find Patient button.

As you can see, the Find Patient screen allows you to enter a patient’s name, SSN#, MR#, and other identifying information to narrow the potential list of matches. The more information you enter, the more the list of resulting patients will be narrowed for you to select from.

All you have to do to search for a patient is type in the information you have, and click on the OK button at the bottom of the screen. A list of potential patients will open and you will be able to select the correct one.

Here is a list of patients who have the last name of Red. Let’s see what happens if we click on Mr. Red 01.

This has opened a screen that will show all of Mr. Red’s visits to GBMC. It is important to select the correct visit. Once you have clicked on the correct visit, you can follow the same process as before to add the patient to your list – by clicking on Add to List and then My List.

This will take you back to your status board, where the patient will have been added. Now we are ready to learn more about our status board.

The status board is a dynamic tool that you can reorganize and adjust according to what you are trying to accomplish. Let’s start by examining the functionality of the headers that display above our patient list.

The title bar contains three lines of headers at the top of the patient list. Each header corresponds to a line in the patient record below.

Notice the black triangle next to the Room-Bed header. This triangle indicates that the patient list is in order by Room and Bed number, from low to high.

You can organize the patient list by any of the headers. To change the sort order, simply click on a different header box. To put the list in order alphabetically by patient name, we will click on the Patient Name header.

Now the triangle appears in the Patient Name header and the list has been sorted alphabetically by the patient’s last name from A to Z. We could click on the Patient Name header again to sort the list in reverse order, from Z to A.

Now that we have learned how to sort information, we will look at what the different colors mean when we see them on the status board.

We will see the color yellow when we have two patients on our status board with similar or identical last names. The color alerts you to take extra care that you are documenting on the correct patient.

Sometimes fields in the patient record will have a gray background. This means it is clickable, and there is more information underneath. We will now see what happens when we click on Stick Lip’s Clindamycin allergy.

When we click on something with a gray background, it will open a new window on the screen with more information in it. In this case, we can see that our patient has a severe allergy to Clindamycin, PCN, and Coumadin.

To close the information box, we can click on the word close at the bottom of the window.

We can also click on the name of the Physician (note the gray background) to see all of the physicians involved with our patient and their contact information. Let’s look at that now by clicking on Dr. Chan’s name.

This will open up the Physician Information box. This is the easiest place to locate a physician’s phone number. When you are finished using this information, you will click on the Close button on the bottom of the window.

Sometimes there will be purple text on your status board. This indicates that there is information on the status board that you have not yet viewed, for example – recent test results.

LAB = laboratory MIC = microbiology BBK = blood bank PTH = pathology ITS = imaging The purple text will show up as an abbreviation. The common abbreviations are explained in the purple text box on this page. Clicking on the purple letters in the Results filed on the Status board automatically opens an EMR window where those results can be viewed. You can click on any text bubbles to view the reports.

Once the information has been viewed, the Results field on the status board is blank because you have seen all the new information.

The next color we will look at is pink. Any time you see the color pink behind a time in the Intervention column, it means you have intervention that were due to be documented on at the time specified.

Let’s see what would happen if we click on a pink Intervention field for a patient.

This will open a window that shows up which interventions are due, as indicated by the pink color. Not all interventions you are able to document on will show up on this screen for your patient. We will learn in another lesson how to document on interventions for your patient. To close this window, we will click on the X in the upper right corner of this window or the Close button.

The color pink is also used to indicate when Medications are due for a patient. Let’s see what happens when we click in the pink Medications box now.

An eight hour snapshot of all the medications that are ordered for the patient will open on the screen. This is a great way to check your patient’s meds before your shift, or to help with gathering meds before an administration. You cannot document that you administered meds from this screen. It is just an overview.

When you are finished viewing your patient’s medications, you can click on Close to return to the Status Board.

Different disciplines require different information on their status board. The default view is the adult status board. If you float to another unit, there are other status board options available. To see the other available options or to change your status board view, you will click on the Select Status Board link at the bottom of the screen.

A list of available status boards is displayed. When you select a different status board view, the headers on the status board will change. Let’s see what would happen if we clicked on “PP – Postpartum.”

This is the postpartum status board. Notice that it contains different column headers and information on a different patient population. This is the information that postpartum staff want to see for the patients they are taking care of.

Using the Status Board