Your Patient Tracker shows you the patients that should be arriving at your office soon, as well as those that are waiting in your reception area, those that are seated, and those currently in checkout. You can view the Patient Tracker in both full-window and widget modes. The Light Bar widget works in conjunction with your Patient Tracker, further detailing the doctor's activity within each patient appointment, and accumulating appointment time statistics.
How to Get Here
Patient Tracker Module Home Ribbon Bar > Modules section > Patient Tracker. (You might also be able to open this feature from the Quick Access toolbar at the top of your Edge window.) You can also open the Patient Tracker without opening Edge by going to Start > Programs > Ortho2 Edge > Patient Tracker.
Settings Window - (Not available from Start menu Patient Tracker widget.) Click Settings to open the Patient Tracker settings window, then choose which patients to include, which view to use, and other display details. See "Set Up Patient Tracker Display" for details.
Move & Sort Columns - You can drag Patient Tracker column headings to re-order the display, and click a column heading to sort that section by the selected column data. Click the same heading again to reverse the sort order.
Review Patient Tracker Sections The Patient Tracker is divided into several sections: Arriving, Waiting, Seated, and Checkout so you can tell at a glance the overall appointment flow in your office. You can use the settings window, described above, to show / hide individual sections in your Patient Tracker display.
Arriving section - The Arriving section of the Patient Tracker automatically notifies you of patients whose appointment time is approaching, but who have not yet signed into your office. You set up the amount of time before an appointment that patients should be included in this section in your settings window, described above. In addition, you can use your Procedure editor to exclude specific appointment procedures from being displayed in this section. See "Set Up Procedure List" for details.
Waiting section - Patients are automatically placed into the Waiting section of your Patient Tracker when they sign into your office. In addition, when you drag & drop a patient from the Arriving section into this section, they are considered signed in. Only patients with appointments today are included: If you forget to Exit the patient from the Patient Tracker, the patient will not appear in this section tomorrow. You can select colors and time parameters in your Patient Tracker editor to categorize the appointments in the Waiting section of your Patient Tracker, showing you at a glance which patients arrived Pre-Appointment, as well as who has had a Short Wait or Long Wait, and who was a Late Patient. See "Set Up Patient Tracker" for details about setting up the parameters, and for a definition of each category.
Seated section - When you select the Seat Patient action, the patient moves to the Seated section of the Patient Tracker. This indicates the patient has been escorted to your operatory, and is progressing through the appointment procedure. If you enable the Change Seating Details When Seating Patient option of your Patient Tracker editor, the seating details dialog pops up as soon as you seat a patient in the Patient Tracker. (Seating details include the chair, assistant, and doctor attending the patient.) Note that you can also right-click a patient in the Seated section of your Patient Tracker or in the Light Bar widget to change the details at any time. While patients are in the Seated section, you may use the light bar widget to further direct and identify the doctor's activity during the appointment.
Checkout section - You move patients into the Checkout section of your Patient Tracker when they are ready for you to schedule their next appointment, update their billing, and complete any other necessary check-out activity.
Drag & Drop Patient Tracker Sections - You can drag and drop patients from one Patient Tracker section to another. Note that you define which sections are available to you with your settings window, described above.
Drag & Drop from Patient Tracker to Light Bar - You can drag and drop patients from the Waiting section of the Patient Tracker to a chair in your light bar widget. This flags the patients as seated, and moves them to the Seated section of the Patient Tracker. This works best if either your Patient Tracker or light bar is open in Application widget mode.
Drag & Drop from Scheduler to Light Bar - Once a patient is signed into your office, you can drag the appointment from your Scheduler to a chair in your light bar widget. This flags the patients as seated, and moves them to the Seated section of the Patient Tracker. This works best if your light bar is open in Application widget mode.
Right-click Actions - You can right-click an appointment in your Patient Tracker, the light bar widget, or your Scheduler and select an action to move patients through your Patient Tracker. For example, selecting the Sign In action places the patient in the Waiting section of your Patient Tracker, and selecting the Seat action places the patient in the Seated section. When you use the right-click menu, you can only select Patient Tracker actions that have not yet occurred for that patient.
Keyboard Shortcuts - You can use keyboard shortcuts in your light bar widget to move patients in a certain chair through your Patient Tracker.
Undo - Select the Undo action from the right-click menu to reverse the Patient Tracker routine by one step. For example, when you undo a patient in the Seated section, that patient is returned to the Waiting section of your Patient Tracker. Further, when you undo a patient in the Waiting section, that patient is no longer signed into your office.
Exit Patient - Select the Exit action from the Scheduler or Patient Tracker right-click menu to remove the patient from your Patient Tracker. These are patients that have either completed your check-out process, or left your office without checking out. Patients are also checked out and exited from the Patient Tracker when you process their appointments as Kept.
Open Patient Folder / Treatment Hub - You can double-click an appointment in your Patient Tracker to open the patient folder to the Treatment Hub page. Or, right-click and select Open, then choose to open either the patient folder Home page, or the Treatment Hub page.
Activate Patient in Scheduler - Right-click an appointment in your Patient Tracker, and select Active Patient in Scheduler. You can now switch to your Scheduler window to work with the patient's appointment.
Update Light Bar Activity - Right-click an appointment in the Seated section of your Patient Tracker to update the doctor's activity in your light bar widget. See "Light Bar" for details.
Change Seating Details - If you enable the Change Seating Details When Seating Patient option of your Patient Tracker editor, the seating details dialog pops up as soon as you seat a patient in the Patient Tracker. (Seating details include the chair, assistant, and doctor attending the patient.) Note that you can also right-click a patient in the Seated section of your Patient Tracker or in the Light Bar widget to change the details at any time.
Process Appointment - You process patient appointments to flag them as Kept, Missed, Changed, Canceled, or Deleted. Keeping these statistics helps you identify trends in your practice and for individual patients. At the very least, we highly recommend that you process appointments as kept and missed to compile accurate data regarding the patient's appointment compliance. Right-click an appointment in your Patient Tracker and select Process Appointment. Then choose the appropriate action. See "Process Appointments" for details.
More Information
Patient Tracker Notification - You can review the Patient Tracker status of your patients with the notification icon that appears on the patient's appointment in your Scheduler . See "View & Navigate Your Schedule" for details.
Auto-fill Patient Tracker Checkout and Exit - When you process an appointment as Kept, the patient is automatically exited from the Patient Tracker, and the checkout and exited times are set to the time you processed the kept appointment.
Full Screen Option - You might find it useful to view your Patient Tracker in full screen mode, to make it as large as possible in your operatory. See "View Full Screen" for details.
Trigger Workflows - Use Patient Tracker workflow triggers (Checkout, Exit, Seat, Sign-in) to activate workflows whenever you move a patient from one section of your Patient Tracker to another. See "Workflow Trigger Editor" for details.
Print Appointment Length Details - Run the Procedure Length Summary report to review the contrast between the amount of time you schedule for procedures
with the time it actually takes to perform a procedure, according to the data you
collect as you process patients through your Patient Tracker system.See "Procedure Length Summary" for details.
Home Ribbon Bar > Modules section > 
Patient Tracker. (You might also be able to open this feature from the Quick Access toolbar at the top of your Edge window.) You can also open the Patient Tracker without opening Edge by going to Start > Programs > Ortho2 Edge > Patient Tracker.
Settings to open the Patient Tracker settings window, then choose which patients to include, which view to use, and other display details. See "Set Up Patient Tracker Display" for details.
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