It's personal #2...

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saustin
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Joined: Mon Mar 11, 2013 5:01 pm

It's personal #2...

Post by saustin » Mon Mar 11, 2013 6:59 pm

Forgive the double post, new to the board.

Anyway, Patient Base to Dentrix, and now on to Open Dental. We currently have in our garage 6 (9 total/office) workstations running W764 with OD and TigerView on the main screens and Dentrix11/DImage on VirtualXP as well. They are being served by a Dell PE2900 for the OD/TV and a peer for D11/DI. We have 4 - Claris I4D's and an AT ScanX setup as well. We have a path mapped to get it all done, but there are many sidetracks.
We are currently running OD on a test conversion, and once my wife and I are comfortable with OD, then it is garage party time and training for the staff. Our journey has been guided off and on by Bruce Stephenson, who some of you may know. We stuck with the old Dentrix11 and DImage because it worked well for us, and we disliked every new iteration of Dentrix. I have done almost all of my own IT over the years. I am not particularly smart, just persistent.
We are trying to transfer as much of the good things that we currently have for ourselves with the Dentrix system to OD. I was told this group may have some suggestions for a particular problem I am struggling with.

The Issue: We currently communicate almost exclusively with our specialist and others using email from one to four or more times every day. I originally created MSWord2003Docs - Templates - for each specialty which we merge with the Dentrix patient data, add the notes, rx, x-rays, photos, and then send via Outlook using a distribution list. Hit one key and enter and 6 to 10 email addresses are linked. We copy the patient name from the merge data, onto our images, subject line, and even text body. After we send the email, we then copy and paste the letter, minus the images, into the patient chart/Doc Center. Every doctor, administrative staff person, and clinically relevant individual including the patient on occassion is immediately in the loop. There is very little conversation required, and there are copies with images in multiple locations. It is fast, elegant, simple and very effective. It is not just specialist however, we do this with just about anyone, like md's,labs, supply folks,on any topic if they are email capable including a lot of inter office stuff.

I am having a difficult time figuring how to do this in OD. I talked with the OD staff weeks ago, and they put me on the Sheets path. I modifed and converted all of my templates to Dentrix "merge field free" doc, pdf, and jpeg formats. Having now explored the finer details of that direction, I don't see that working for us. The OD email feature is not compatible with the direction we are trying to go. If it requires changing formats and file names and conversions and so on, then it is just too much effort to be practical for us.

I then started down the Letter merge path, and that looks promising, but I feel like I am spinning the wheels. Is is possible for someone to help map me through if that is the way to go?

The other direction was to create OD Templates if they are MSWord like. The editing capability of Letter Merge is powerful and attractive, but we are not married to any single approach if we can get it done.
I feel like I am making this way more complicated than it needs to be, but this is a very important part of our service.

We are really happy to become OD office. We love the direction and enthusiasm. The sophistication is pretty amazing.
Dr. Steve Austin
Carmel Valley, CA

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jordansparks
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Re: It's personal #2...

Post by jordansparks » Tue Mar 12, 2013 7:00 am

As you said, our built-in email is not very sophisticated. Sheets are great, but not tied in very tightly with email yet.

It sounds like you just need to do it the same way as you did it with Dentrix. My understanding is that you would merge to a Doc template, copy/paste, attach, and send via Outlook. I think you would just do the same thing with OD. One thing I am curious about is HIPAA. How have you kept all that email traffic encrypted?
Jordan Sparks, DMD
http://www.opendental.com

saustin
Posts: 2
Joined: Mon Mar 11, 2013 5:01 pm

Re: It's personal #2...

Post by saustin » Tue Mar 12, 2013 6:20 pm

Thanks for responding. The steps to a solution look pretty obvious in hindsight no matter how confusing it may be in the discovery phase. The process for me not knowing the meaning and significance of all of the steps is not linear. As always, I will just keep banging away until I accept and determine that it will or will not work as I had hoped.
We have not been encrypting the emails although that may be a requirement. Most of the docs that I work with do not do their own IT. It just has not become a priority. Regardless, for Outlook and Gmail it is really pretty simple. Encryption keys are installed on both ends in the setup email sections. Once intiated it works pretty seamlessly or so I have been led to believe. Pro versions of windows have addtional capability, and there are several private lable software brands to choose from.
Having said that, I will be thrilled when I have something come out of OD that is encryption worthy.
Thanks again,
Steve Austin

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