Question: How can prescribers add instructions, information or education materials to the After Visit Summary (AVS) provided to patients at the end of encounters?
Context: Encounter overviews (emergency, inpatient and outpatient) are routinely shared with patients as "After Visit Summaries" (AVS). These include information about key events, educational materials, medications, follow-up appointments and discharge instructions. The AVS is automatically sent to the MyAHS Connect patient portal. Additionally, patients are provided with a printed AVS at discharge and at the close of most outpatient visits.
Prescribers can use the "Discharge" navigator (inpatient encounters) or "Wrap-Up" navigator (outpatient encounters) to add instructions and/or educational handouts before the AVS is printed.
Answer: Instructions and handouts can be added to the AVS for emergency, inpatient and outpatient encounters, with slight variations in how this is done.
Inpatient
- Open the Discharge navigator and note the "Other Instructions" section in the navigator menu. Select this to open an edit box in the navigator where prescriber instructions for inclusion in the AVS can be entered.
- Note that additional instructions can be attached to any outpatient appointments set up in the Discharge navigator.
- One or more educational handouts, with patient-specific comments added by the prescriber, can be attached to the AVS. To do this, select the "References" menu item within the Discharge navigator. This opens a section for looking up and adding educational attachments. Individual attachments can be edited to make them maximally applicable to the patient, and overall comments can be added by the prescriber.
Outpatient and Emergency
- Open the Wrap-Up navigator (or the Dispo tab in emergency contexts) and note the top-left "Patient Instructions" section. This includes a lookup tool for optionally selecting one or more educational handouts for attachment to the AVS. Educational handouts can be edited to customize to particular patient needs. There is also provision for general instructions or comments that will be included in the AVS.
- Just above the Patient Instructions section are icons that can be used to preview or (re)print the AVS.
