I am working on a project that enhancing the EMR (electronic medical records) where I work. We are creating a feature that will help doctors quickly build their medical plan and add items to the order (or list of items to charge the client). This feature, called a virtual travel sheet, will greatly increase the doctor’s satisfaction by making data entry easier, faster and will hopefully create a pleasant data entry experience with minimal typing. Doctors are familiar with the concept of a travel sheet. Many of them still use them in their hospitals to this day. Integrating a familiar paradigm in to the computer software used in the hospital should be greeted with delight.

What does a travel sheet look like? See the image below:

I am writing the requirements and basic understanding of what the Virtual Travel Sheet (VTS) will do so that developers, QA, project managers and any other team players will understand the scope and expectations of the project. This is just a first draft.

Overview

The virtual travel sheet (VTS) will allow users to:

• Easily enter items in to the plan without having to type in free text (so easy that it is preferable)
• Easily enter items in to the plan without knowing any codes
• Transfer/translate the items in my plan to an order
• Transfer/translate the items in my plan to an estimate
• See my plan built in real time
• Create estimates (treatment plans) for items or services for the future
• Include exams, vaccines, medications, injections, medical services, lab, imaging, etc.
• Present items based on type of visit (outpatient, inpatient (hospitalized), boarding/grooming and retail products)
• Filter out codes that don’t apply to the patient by species, age, weight, sex, altered status)
• Present active, commonly used items (per hospital) as used per species
• Allow for search
• Ability to link to concerns
• Display recent estimates for this patient

Typical users would be

• Doctors writing their medical note
• Technicians entering in items for the doctor in to his/her medical plan
• Technicians entering in charges to the order

Access

• Small tab to the right of the screen where user can “side open from left to right” the VTS.
• This allows the user’s work not to be interrupted.
• They can slide this open, and add items to today’s Medical plan or create an estimate.
• All actions will be saved automatically.
• The user can then just “slide” the window closed again and continue working on the lower/bottom/previous screen they were on before the opened the VTS.

Available travel sheets

• Outpatient
• Inpatient
• Surgery
• Medications
• Specialty
• Boarding & Grooming
• Retail products

Filters applied to the VTS (can be turned off on the patient by the user)

• Species
• Sex
• Age
• Weight
• Altered (y/n)
• CareClub enrollment

The travel sheet will provide the user a condensed listing of codes based on

• Filters that have automatically been applied
• Available codes/catalog items for that hospital
• Most commonly used codes by VCA
• Most commonly used codes by that hospital
• User favorites (second iteration)
• Templates applied to plan