Question: How can prescribers share discharge summaries (including print) with patients?
Context: Connect Care supports sharing of chart content with the subject patient or their approved proxy.
The best way to do this is via the "MyAHS Connect" patient portal, which automatically shares most investigation results and many other information types. Encounter summaries (emergency, inpatient and outpatient) are routinely shared as "After Visit Summaries" (AVS). These include information about key events, educational materials, medications, appointments and discharge instructions. Patients who have not signed up for MyAHS Connect receive a printed AVS.
Clinicians are free to share other documentation items with their patients, preferably via MyAHS Connect as an approved and secure patient communications platform. Documents can be printed for patients who are not active on the patient portal.
Answer: The decision to share a document via the patient portal should be made when authoring the item to be shared. Printing a document happens after the document is completed and signed.
Document Sharing
- Create or open a document for editing within a patient's chart.
- Look for and select the "Share w/ Patient" button at the top of the document editor. A warning will appear if the current patient is not activated on the patient portal (sign-up instructions appear in the AVS).
- Note that the "Share w/ Patient" button may appear to be activated (by default) if a Note Type (e.g., progress note, discharge summary, etc.) has not been selected. As soon as that (mandatory) type selection has been made, the share button initiates to its default "off" state. The authoring clinician needs to make an explicit decision to share by clicking on the "Share w/ Patient" button.
- The document will become available (including any subsequent revisions) in MyAHS Connect.
- Create or open a document for editing, then complete and sign it within a patient's chart.
- Go to the "Chart Review" activity and find and select the document of interest in the "Notes" tab.
- Look for and select the print icon at the top of the document report. The default printer should be the one assigned to the current patient location. An alternate local printer can be selected (see printing tips).
- It is also possible to print documents via the Sidebar when charts are opened to an inpatient encounter. Look to the Sidebar Summary Index and select the "Notes, Sidebars" option. A listing of recent summative documents will appear in the Sidebar. If one of these is selected, a print icon is available and usable at the top of the Sidebar display.
