Fulton Family Health Associates

At Fulton Family Health Associates, we use the McKesson/Practice Partner® electronic medical record, and this page is intended mainly for fellow PP users. We have enjoyed writing some "add-ons" to the software...PP tools, if you will...and this page is designed to demonstrate those tools.

Most of the link tools have been uploaded to the Practice Partner® User Database File Sharing site. If you are a Practice Partner® user, if you have ideas for tools you would like to see integrated into Practice Partner®, feel free to contact Dr. Robert Pierce by phone at the office or by email (available through the Practice Partner Community Forum).

It is our hope that these tools will improve your efficiency and enhance patient care.

Click the title to see the demo.

Autohotkey Tools

Autohotkey (AHK) is a free, open-source Windows macro utility. Many Practice Partner® folks use Macro Express. ME has a nice user interface, which makes writing macros easier when starting out. AHK macros on the other hand, are written as text files in Notepad, making it more like a programming language. However it is extremely intuitive, with the added support of an outstanding Help File and a wonderful user forum. AHK not only allows you to build simple macros, but it also allows you to create and manipulate controls and GUIs, manipulate Microsoft Office apps using COM, and has freely available text function libraries, COM libraries, and much more. The scripts are compilable, meaning you don't have to have AHK to run the programs. The following are demonstrations of programs written in AHK. Unless otherwise noted, the author is RPP.

PLRGUI The Practice Partner Research Network is a practice-based research network, a collaboration between PP users across the country, McKesson/Practice Partner, and the Family Medicine Department at the Medical University of South Carolina. As a member of PPRNET, you receive quarterly reports of practice performance. You can also receive a Patient Level Report (PLR). This PLR contains no patient identifiers, but the PLRGUI program we wrote uses a function written by Pat Matzner at Kachina Family Practice to export data from PP and link to the PLR. Further, it allows you to filter your report by clinical criteria and then output the patient-specific data back in a variety of formats.
Sidebar GUI This is the macro we use every day. The number of macros we used in the office was growing by leaps and bounds. Keyboard macros were not working because we were running out of intuitive keystroke combinations and then we were unable to remember any of them. So we developed a "sidebar" menu macro that holds them all together and runs off of mouse clicks instead of keystrokes. Lots of click savers are in here.
Zoom Title Filter This is an adaptation of a macro written by Boskoop called Kollektor and published on the AHK forum. This is just a fantastic little text filter program. Here, we've extracted a list of all of our order names, then using Kollektor, we filter the list in order to get a precise match between order names and Zoom titles.
Quicktext Search Utility This is a little utility we wrote to search through the body of the quicktexts for a string. It outputs the name of the QT, allows printing or saving.
Quicktext Search Utility, version 2 This is a major improvement over our original QT search utility. It also incorporates Kollektor. This version takes longer to extract the data, but it searches in a fraction of a second and with each character entered. It also allows optional whole word and case-sensitive searches, displays the body of the selected quicktext, and allows printing and saving.
Diagnosis and Procedure Code Filter This is a click saver in the Diagnosis Code Select and Procedure Code Select windows. It detects whether you are entering a word or code and changes the radio button accordingly. After about 1 second without an entry, it automatically clicks the search button.
Closer (Popup Killer) This little script automatically closes "The note will be printed after it is saved," "The spell checking session is over," "The record will reflect that the patient takes no medications," and the "Ready to delete message..." popup windows.
Timer This script includes Closer, above, but also changes certain default settings within PP. Specifically, it defaults the facility in order to enable use of a custom order form, and it defaults the substitutition permitted box for new and old prescriptions. The code could be adapted to change any default controls in PP.
PP Image Capture This script finds the webcam driver, brings up a small window with the webcam image, then provides several save options, including .bmp or .jpg file type options, save to file (with a select file dialog), save to Desktop, and save to Practice Partner. The save to Practice Partner option automatically links the image file to the patient chart in Practice Partner.
Autocorrect Just one of several AHK misspellings correction program. This one has a hotkey which allows you to add words on the fly.
Redater Getting dates in the proper format is important in Practice Partner, especially when using dot codes with dates. This file uses regular expressions to autoconvert a variety of date entries (11.24.2005, Dec 2, 09, 3-2-65, etc) to a standard MM/DD/YYYY format. Still working out some bugs in this one.
WebView Status This is a small window showing the open charts, green if they have WV, red if they do not. Double click to bring chart to the fore. Always on top. This listview could be repositioned or incorporated into a larger GUI.
Message Dot Coder This is an hotkey which restores dot codes in messages to their proper format and syntax.

LINK Tools

Practice Partner's built-in, IE-based browser allows you to open local files or browse out to the internet. PP allows you to configure these LINK in notes so that data is exported as a query string. You can also configure a local file to create dot codes to store data in PP. These tools use one or both techniques. I want to thank the PP users who tested or contributed to these files: JF, TB, BP, KD, WJ, KM, VB.
PDF Autofill By adding document and form field level javascript to a pdf file, you can autofill the form using data from Practice Partner.
Pediatric Blood Pressure Incorporates these tables and using height, age, sex, BMI percentile, interprets pediatric blood pressures and makes a handout.
Pediatric BMI Percentile While PP does a nice job of graphing the BMI percentile, sometimes you want a number and a patient handout. This tool uses height, weight, age and sex to calculate the percentile, writes a handout, and allows you to put dot codes with the data back into the note.
CHADS2 Calculates the CHAD2 score for patients with atrial fibrillation and generates the dot codes.
CURB65 Calculates risk of death for patient with community acquired pneumonia.
Asthma Action Plan Calculates a predicted peak flow, with the dot coding; allows entry of an actual "best" peak flow, if available, with the dot coding; generates an action plan based on either the predicted or the best peak flow. Special thanks to Jeff Faust for help with this tool.
Asthma Action Plan, version 2 This version does not rely on the presence of clinical element data to generate an asthma action plan. It uses such data if available, but if not, then you can choose medications from drop down menus. Calculates predicted peak flow using demographics and vitals but allows substitution of personal best peak flows if available. Also allows customization of the "yellow zone" instructions and emergency contacts, with clinical element dot coding to put all of these elements back into Practice Partner. Generates a single page action plan with images.
Excuses One of our favorites. From within a note, you can write and print a work or school excuse and store the excuse information as a clinical element. Letter templates work well, but this is much, much faster.
Centor Score Modified Center score calculates the pretest likelihood of strep pharyngitis.
LDL Goal Calculator Uses clinical elements and lab data to calculate 10 year risk of heart disease and the LDL goal.
Cardiovascular Risk Calculator This is our modification of the tool written by Walker Jackson. It calculates "cardiovascular age" and 10 year risk of CHD, CHF, PAD, and stroke. Uses lab and clinical elements for data entry if available, otherwise defaults to no or negative answers and allows you to change the answers within the program, recalculating "on the fly." Also includes an LDL goal calculator.
FRAX® Calculator Autohotkey LINK tool which uses vital signs, sex, age, race, T-scores, and other various clinical elements to calculate 10 year risk of osteoporotic and hip fracture. Like the CV Risk tool, it includes default or no answers if no data elements are available and allows changes in the answers within the program, recalculating risk "on the fly." Uses BMI if no BMD is available. Includes dot coding for sending T-scores back to Practice Partner.
Review of Systems Checkbox tool which adds positive ROS items and the EM coding markers to a tet area to copy back to PP. Great for widely positive ROS.
Immunization Data Entry Drop down lists and text boxes allow entry of multiple immunizations; automatically generates the dot codes; there is one tool for for in-house vaccines, another for outside vaccines.
MMSE Checkbox tool for mental status exams, with dot coding.
CKD Totally awesome tool written by Walker Jackson for calculating eGFR; generates all sorts of dot codes for your lab or problems list tables.
Depo Date Calculator Using dates stored as clinical elements, calculates automatically whether someone is with their Depo injection date interval and gives the the date for the next injection.

Combination Tools