Observations

This article explains how to enter observations in the patient record.

As of Orchid, you can add additional observations to a patient record for a single day.

Enter observations

  1. From the patient record, select Observations from the patient explorer.
  2. Click Add in the top-left of the observations section. The Observations screen will appear.
  3. The first set of observations recorded on a day will have the primary observations checkbox ticked and disabled.

    You are able to backdate observations, but you cannot forward date them.

  4. Enter any required observations and click Save, or click Close to exit without saving.

Enter additional observations

If you select Add from the Observations section a second time on the same day, an alert will appear asking if you wish to edit the primary observation. Click Yes to edit the existing set of observations, or click no to enter additional observations for the day.

When entering additional daily observations, the Primary observation checkbox will be unticked. Tick the Primary observation checkbox to make the newly entered observations the primary observations for the day. The previously entered observations will not be overwritten, but they will no longer be considered the primary observations for the day.

Additional observations (any observations that are not primary observations) added on the same day will be coloured blue.

Primary observations

If you have additional observations entered for the day you can nominate a set of observations to be the primary observations.

Only primary observations for the day will save to Today's notes.

Adding observations via other clinical functions in Bp Premier (for example, adding a BMI via Clinical > BMI) will enter the observation into the primary observations column for the day.

When using other clinical functions in Bp Premier which display observation information, depending on the function, either only primary observations will be displayed, or you will have the option to include any additional observations.

Additional observations can be used when generating graphs, and you have the option to include additional observations when viewing previous values for blood pressure and BMI, when adding observations to a word processor document, when adding observations in the subpoena tool, or when using a search query in Utilities > Search that uses observation details.

Other clinical functions will use primary observation details.

Deleted observations

Deleted primary and additional observations can be recovered via Utilities > Deleted clinical data.

If you attempt to recover a primary observation for a patient and the time that the primary observation was recorded is different to the time that the existing primary observations in the patient record were recorded, an alert will appear.

Click Yes on the alert to restore the deleted primary observation to the primary observation column, or click No to restore the deleted primary observation as an additional observation.

Last updated 02 August 2022

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