[Kathy Young]

We have a 24/7 Help Desk staff to “observe and report.” Over the years, we have expanded their role somewhat to do simple troubleshooting – stop/start threads/processes. We have also done extensive documentation to help them triage actual interface problems vs. application problems in other systems that cause threads to queue messages or go to “opening” states. Doing that has dropped our after hours calls from >15 per week when I started to <5.

There are three of us in the interface group. We rotate on call, take vacation one at a time, etc. Our administration’s attitude is that – this is a 24/7 organization, and we will be available 24/7 to support our systems. Like others, if the on call person cannot resolve the problem, the senior interface person may get called on their “off” weeks.

There is no additional compensation for being on call. That’s been “calculated” into our base salary. However, our manager is very flexible. If we’ve spent considerable time over the weekend or during the night to troubleshoot a problem, we can get the time back by coming in later, leaving earlier, etc. Although we’re salaried, we do use a time tracker to log our work hours – our regular hours and our “after hours” calls.

To those of you who are still compensated for on call – I would not advise relying on that income to fund your retirement!

Kathy Young

Heritage Valley Health System

[Kathy Young]

Nathan –

This sounds like it should be elementary, but I’m having trouble with the thread definition. What protocol do I use? Where do I apply the Tcl.

I’m almost there with the Tcl – it’s the thread definitions that I’m stumbling over.

Thanks, Kathy

[Kathy Young]

Glenn,

You’re probably on the right track. I made the change you suggested and got a different error – “Can’t open perl script “eval `/hci/bin/hcisetenv -root ksh /hci/qdx5.3/integrator test3`;/hci/qdx5.3/integrator/contrib/hcicyclesavemsgs -d -o 45″: A file or directory in the path name does not exist.”

Any other thoughts?

Kathy

[Kathy Young]

I’d be interested in this information as well. We’re discussing this with McKesson and haven’t gotten very far with them! Is anyone doing this already?

[Kathy Young]

Thanks to those with helpful hints. I did figure this out earlier today. You’re right, Bob, there was an iteration problem.

Since I have to conjure up the ZL1 segment, I had to add an IF statement before the ZL1 copy to say that I only want one ZL1 per OBX. The way the iteration was written at first was to keep looping through OBX->ZL1->NTE group for as many NTE’s as occurred.

Kathy

[Kathy Young]

We’re about to make this very same upgrade…Now I’m worried. What’s the word from QuoVadx?

[Kathy Young]

Charlie –

As always, Thank You!!!

I figured that was the problem, but didn’t think simply adding the year would resolve it. I am now using “set brday $bmonth/$bday$byear”.

It works perfectly!

Kathy

[Kathy Young]

April –

They call ours Centricity Cardiology Data Management System.  I don’t know whether it has other names!

Kathy

[Kathy Young]

Using the NextGen EMR app, we send the lab results from our hospital labs to the docs offices. I’m not a big fan of that app, but it is in place here.

We also have a home grown Web-enabled application that has lab results, transcriptions and radiology and nuclear results from hospital and satellite sites. We are connected to our GE cardiology system, so that the docs also have access to the still and moving photos of cardiac caths. All of the traffic to this app goes through the interface. It’s been very well received and is well used.

[Kathy Young]

Our physician practices have NextGen’s EPM & EMR for their registration/billing/clinical system & we are affilated with two Harvest labs, that are owned by physician practices.

What kinds of data are you looking to be shared?

Kathy

[Kathy Young]

Charlie –

As always, thanks. It works perfectly. I now have a proc that will calculate age. If the age is less than one year, I will send months. If less than one month, it will send days. My downstream system folks are very pleased.

Kathy

[Kathy Young]

This topic comes up from time to time & I think I can understand both sides of the issue.

I love this as a technical forum and wouldn’t want to lose sight of that.

However, we just endured a nine-month process of finding a new interface guy. Monster, et. al., head hunters and our own Human Resources had a very difficult time figuring out what we were looking for.

I’m not looking for a new job, but if I were, I’d be happy if there were a centralized place to look for jobs in my area of expertise.

[Kathy Young]

Sweet! Thanks. Bill

[Kathy Young]

Looking good in Western PA. 🙂

[Kathy Young]

I’ve been called a lot of things, not appropriate for this forum! My official title is Interface Coordinator. I’m Level 2 certified and am the most senior member. My office mate is an Interface Analyst. He’s Level 1 certified.

We primarily deal with Cloverleaf, but also maintain another interface engine and a variety of servers.

[Author]

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