Implementation of Health History in OD?

[eng2doc]

I have been reading quite a few threads describing different people handling the health history information in OD. But I still could not find a decent solution as there is no database support for the health history at this time in OD. Some of the main complexities I see are:
1. People want different fields/attributes and level of detail in the health/dental history
2. The above requirement create problem in the implementation of database as well as designing GUI
3. Can't expect patient to fill out a new health history every time. Usually, health history should be changed after verbally discussing with the patient at the subsequent appointments.

So questions for Jordan are:
1. Can you provide some insight into the future implementation of the health history?
2. Will the health history information be standardized by OD? if yes, could you please tell us the standard fields/attributes etc and If not, how would OD handle database and GUI for all the people implementing different versions of the health history in web forms etc. (a possible solution could be something like XML/XSLT paradigm in OD, where XML is standardized with broad set of optional fields and a style sheet emulating different customized views).

These questions would surely help me (and I am sure many others) to decide which route should be taken to implement health history for new OD implementations.

Thank you in advance.

[jordansparks]

The different needs for the GUI are already solved and implemented. That's what sheets are for. So maybe you are not fully aware of the capabilities of Open Dental yet.

The problems and allergies (formerly called diseases) will soon make their way into checkboxes/radiobuttons that are importable. We also need to add copy/paste to sheets, or else creating all those checkboxes will take forever.

[eng2doc]

Jordan,

I think you answered my question. My understanding is that the health history fields are not implemented as separate columns in the database tables, but the whole data from the sheet is serialized (like an object) into the database. My point was that even after filling the Medical History sheet, the medication, allergies and diseases still have to be separately assigned by someone in the dental office (as they don't get automatically populated in patient information). But seems like with your answer, that feature (storing these fields as possibly separate columns) is coming soon.

Thanks

[jordansparks]

Yes, that's right.

[Pruce Dental]

Any updates on the medical history as far as importing? I am completely paperless except for the medical histories. My medical/dental history form is long. I think that multipage sheets will have to come at the same time too for this feature to be maximized. Just wondering if I should invest the time to make 2-3 separate sheets for my medical history knowing that I will have to redo them once the forms become importable.

Jordan..is there a webpage listing the features for version 8.0 yet ? I thought that I saw a blank one right after 7.9 was released but I only see a broken link now. Am I missing the correct link?

[jordansparks]

Where are you finding an old broken link, so that I can go fix it? Anyway, we're going straight to 11.0, and we will match our major versions to the 2-digit year from now on.
http://www.opendental.com/manual/version11_0.html

[Pruce Dental]

I guess there is no broken link..I was looking for version 8.0...

So is anything happening anytime soon with importing the medical history or should I just commit to making several sheets right now and redoing them in the future?

[jordansparks]

I'm sorry, I can't predict when features will be added. It changes from day to day. I guess I would suggest that you not assume any feature is coming soon. That way, you won't get (as) frustrated when it takes us longer. I suspect it will take us at least a few months.

[Pruce Dental]

Jordan...

Any updates on importing from the medical history?..will we see anything in version 11.1?

Also are you doing anything with the tab order issue with filling out sheets? We are trying to do all our registration forms, medical historys, dental histories and HIPAA acknowledgements (5 sheets) thru the kiosk but patients are having trouble trying to navigate around the forms when they try to advance to the next question.

[jordansparks]

We made a lot of enhancements to sheet design, but I forgot about tab order. That's something that we will try to get into 11.1. We may also possibly get insurance import into 11.1. But importing of medications, problems, and allergies is very complicated and will not be part of version 11.1.

[Pruce Dental]

Thanks ahead of time on the tab order issue. Really looking forward to that. When you add the insurance importing can you also add importing the student status and college name field?