VistA Accomplishments

VistA is the name of the software applications that have been created by VHA within Veterans Affairs (VA). All VA medical centers run the VistA applications. The following link describes VistA software - Hardhats. There is a group of computer specialist who are furthering the use of VistA to the World - WorldVistA.

The following is a list of routines that I have developed or made numerous modifications. The following web site is where I work North Chicago VA Medical Center.

  1. Developed Routine and Created Option. The VISN 12 PAS chiefs decided each medical center needs to report their Fee Basis Oupatient costs to the VISN Council. I took an existing Fee Basis routine, FBAACR, and modified the routine to include other data elements from file 162, FEE BASIS PAYMENT FILE. Inserted the ^ delimiters between data elements for parsing in Excel.

  2. Created a Linen Distribution List for the Warehouse. Warehouse employees open the excel spreadsheet and print 1 of the 6 created worksheets depending on what day it is. This will print out a linen distribution list specifying the items and the quantity that need to be pulled and delivered to each ward and distribution point.

  3. Created a new MS Word Template for all travel and tuition requests with Fiscal and Education providing input and functionality. Word template, (Local Form) LF 102.dot, can be accessed and completed electronically by the requesting user. After the user completes the form, it is then printed and routed for disposition and concurrence signatures.

  4. Created a new Clinical Reminder. This clinical reminder checks to ensure the provider has completed an 'Over-The-Counter/Herbal/Non-VA Meds' note for the Patient.

  5. Developed Routine and Created Options. The Office of Compliance & Business Integrity (10B3) sent out instructions and templates to the medical centers to run on a monthly basis. I put the logic of the search criteria into a routine and then created two options that called the existing templates and newly created routine. This simplified the process so the reports did not have to be run from File Manager. The instructions, template design, and routine were sent to VISN 12 medical centers for them to implement.

  6. Created a new MS Word Template. The new template, NC Business Card Request Form, is to be completed by the employee when requesting business cards. After obtaining the necessary concurrence signatures, the employee will submit the completed form to Community Affairs for final disposition.

  7. Created new Clinical Reminder. The clinical reminder checks that there are at least 3 Smoking Cessation Notes (Progress, Consult, or Discharge) discussing Smoking Cessation within the last 365 days for Patients who are tobacco users.

  8. Created option, Patient Funds Quarterly Statement Report, per request of the Patient Funds QAT. They needed an option to print the Patient fund Statements by ward and there were no class 1 options that did this. There was also no Date/Time stamp on the Statements when they printed. To meet their needs, local routine AHIPAS05 was created. It prompts for ward input, type of patient account (Restricted, or Unrestricted) and a start date where the patient statements would begin.

  9. Created 2 new clinical reminders. If the patient is allergic to Eggs or Influenza do not administer the Influenza immunization shot to the patient. Also do not administer the Tetanus shot if the patient has had allergies to the Tetanus shot when given previously.

  10. Created a delimited report for each patient movement using the Medical Center PTF record while screening out Census and Fee Basis records. The report provided the Patient name, SSN, Ward, LOS, SC%, Zip, and County for each patient movement. Numerous scenarios had to be taken into account for PTF records where the patient was transferred to the hospital from a long term care ward and where multiple patient movements occurred. This component was part of other data sets in calculating the cost per day of care for each medical center ward.

  11. Updated field STATION NAME to NORTH CHICAGO VAMC for all records with an Active Account Status in the PATIENT FUNDS file. This saved numerous hours when it was being done manually. Also, modified print template so total number of records would be displayed when running the Patient Summary Report.

  12. A patient no longer wanted to receive Pre-Appointment Letters. The Pre-Appointment Letters are sent to patients to remind them of upcoming future appointments. After receiving the ok from MAS, local modifications were made to the SDL1 routine and a locally created field, SUPPRESS PRE-APMT LETTERS, was created in the PATIENT file. If the locally created field SUPPRESS PRE-APMT LETTERS is set to YES, then the patient will not be sent a Pre-Appointment letter.

  13. Created local FM Sort and Print templates, OIG 7/1/02, to extract Purchase Card data for the IG Audit. The data was extracted using a combination of M (mumps) code within FM templates. The delimited data was then imported into Excel.

  14. Came up with a unique way to assist in identifying the Purchase Orders for specific items that were requested by the IG. Two data sets with delimited data were extracted from VistA and imported in the MS Access tables. After the data types for each field in the tables had been setup, 63 queries were created to extract the specific identified items. Output from the queries were then saved to Excel files for the IG's use. The MS Access Database and routines to accomplish this was sent to other facilities when requested.

  15. Created a new option where Employee Health clinic staff can edit the 'test result messages' that are sent to employees. Also updated the M (mumps) logic on how notification letters are edited. Line tag EN2B replaces EN2 within the routine

  16. Created two new options where Employee Health clinic staff can edit Non-Compliant TB tests and Non-Compliant Chest X-rays entries. This gives the user the ability to modify a non-compliant test for an employee instead of creating a new 'walk-in entry' which would lead to double counting.

  17. Created new routine AHIEH04A that enhances the way the last Mantoux test and Chest X-ray test are computed.

  18. Created a new option where Employee Health can send E-mail messages to employees notifying them to return to the clinic for their test results on Chest X-rays, EKGs, Labs or other specialized tests.

  19. Created a routine API to gather the necessary components for printing Patient address labels when the DFN is submitted utilizing FileManager or a local routine. The Patient Name is placed in the proper order (first middle last suffix). Depending on the gender, the correct title of Mr. or Ms. is included. All components (name, address, city, etc) of the Patient address are converted to lowercase except the first letter which is uppercase. The information is delimited so it can be uploaded and parsed using Excel and Word.

  20. All patients were de-enrolled from every clinic except for the identified active clinics. When the patient was de-enrolled, the date of discharge and reason for discharge fields were updated as well. This saved countless hours for PAS if done manually

  21. Created TIU Object Extract - 'Laboratory' which will find and compute the values for 25 Lab tests. The information is then automatically inserted into a Progress Note.

  22. Created an option where a user could review and act on 'Bill of Collections' for multiple services instead of being limited to the user's assigned service/section.

  23. Created TIU Object Extract - 'Future Patient Appointments' which will automatically display all future appointments for a patient to be included in a Progress Note.