Hi all,

I've got a bit of a dilema that I'm hoping somebody may be able to help with.

We are currently using server side printing for all internal locations across 2 sites. Due to the size and usage of certain locations we have more than one location setup, eg. A&E Major, A&E Minor and A&E Resus. Each location server side prints to the location that the user is logged in as. Alias locations have been set up in iLab to ensure that all requests and reports are sent/recieved as 1 a&e location. This has all been fine until we have come to add radiology.

The radiology system does not support multiple locations so I am having a hard time getting my head around how we can approach this.

Does anyone have any suggestions?

Thanks in advance!

Emma 

Hi Emma,

I think we spoke  very briefly about this yesterday. Were the alias locations orginally setup purely so the printout goes to the correct printer in these larger locations?

As I menitioned yesterday the July09 release of ICE introduced Print Manager which supersedes the orginal Server Side Printing I think you are using. With this release you can choose add conditions to print by WorkstationID. If I understand your problem correctly, rather than controliing the printing by logged in location each individual workstation could be configured to print to a particular printer. This way you could reduce your locations back to a single location ie A&E and configure the printing so rather than looking at logged in location it uses the workstation ID. Does this sound like a potential solution to your problem? Also - has this been raised with your Implmentation Specialist

Regards,

Ben

Hi Emma,

Server Side Printing does not give you a choice of different printers to route to. You could setup print manager however so that an invidiual workstation would always print to a particular printer. It doesn't matter if you select a different location when requesting as Print Manager will be looking at the workstation ID in order to route the print and not the logged in or selected location from the order details screen. I think if this is currently a problem then you should look at scheduling an upgrade to July09.1 as it will be easier to see how this works once you can see how the screens work.

Ben

I'm a tad confused. Is the problem related to printing or to alias locations in the RIS?

If it's printing, Print manager will sort it for you no problem - I have been messing around with this and it is very versatile. You can for instance create a profile to select specified printers based upon requesting location (job done in your case). However, I think your bigger problem is the fact that RIS cannot handle alias locations.

One solution would be to have separate locations set up within the RIS for each A&E location but I don't know how that would sit with your folks.

This thread has actually got me thinking though as I am going to be setting up Radiology soon (via HL7 to an HSS CRIS). My first question is, what location code is sent to the CRIS - is it the ICE location code or the associated local code for that discipline? - if it's the ICE code I'm in deep do do as none of the ICE location codes match the Radiology ones (eek)

Hmmm, a tricky one. I suspect you could fiddle it using the print manager but the codes in the RIS are a problem you cannot overcome as it won't handle alias codes. Our lab system (iLabTP) will handle alias codes in the same way yours does but in RIS they are fixed to the national practice code for GP's or an internal code for wards prefixed with our national ID number for the trust (it's a CFH system).

One comment I would make though is that I thought server side printing was beneficial as the printing mechanism was seamless with no need to invoke the print command by clicking OK in the windows print manager box. If you wanted users to have options, just switch it off and network the different printers to the workstation and let them choose that way, but thats a bit of a backward step I know. Giving users choice is not always a good thing.

I have pondered the same problem myself and haven't really come up with an answer. However, thinking outside the box, do you need to have the radiology printout at the requesting location?, would it be possible to have it printing to a central printer perhaps sited in the Radiology dept? - my cynical side tells me it's a daft idea and would never work, but wouldn't it be brill if it did.

Hmmm, a tricky one. I suspect you could fiddle it using the print manager but the codes in the RIS are a problem you cannot overcome as it won't handle alias codes. Our lab system (iLabTP) will handle alias codes in the same way yours does but in RIS they are fixed to the national practice code for GP's or an internal code for wards prefixed with our national ID number for the trust (it's a CFH system).

One comment I would make though is that I thought server side printing was beneficial as the printing mechanism was seamless with no need to invoke the print command by clicking OK in the windows print manager box. If you wanted users to have options, just switch it off and network the different printers to the workstation and let them choose that way, but thats a bit of a backward step I know. Giving users choice is not always a good thing.

I have pondered the same problem myself and haven't really come up with an answer. However, thinking outside the box, do you need to have the radiology printout at the requesting location?, would it be possible to have it printing to a central printer perhaps sited in the Radiology dept? - my cynical side tells me it's a daft idea and would never work, but wouldn't it be brill if it did.

Hi Dave,

Thanks for your reply! We have now upgraded to July 9.1 and there are now a number of ways to manage printing and we should be able to come up with a solution that removes the location from the print profiles so this will now allow us to do what we need.

In regard to what you said, you are correct in theory but our radiology, pas and pathology systems have existed independently for many years and as such, different formats have been used for each systems' local codes so they are not the same and it would be unrealistic to change them to match.

Emma