I wish the order writer had an option for send the order through ac to the nurse or front desk.

Vicki,

If you right click on the patient name and use the context menu to select the order writer, it will put the order in a message in your mailbox. You can then forward the message, save it to the chart, or whatever.

@Kevin,

That is certainly one way. I guess it depends on what Vicki is trying to accomplish. If she just wants the front staff to know what the order is, then that way works great. She prints it to a printer in the room or up front, then forwards the copy which is automatically saved to the chart. But, when you forward that copy, it no longer has the original formatting. Even if you "clean it up," it still will always say

To: Tom
From: Jane

It will not give the insurance information or the demographics both which are crucial. It also also leaves off the very important diagnosis, although I have asked for that for years. (Fax requisition, radiology calls the next day for a new req, staff prints one to fax but does not know the diagnosis -- very frustrating).

I am not sure exactly what Vicki is trying to do. If you simply want them to be able to print it, why can't you print to a printer at the reception area? If you just want them to know the procedure, why not simply send a message. If the latter is all you want, then Kevin has the perfect solution, albeit without a diagnosis.

If you want them to have an exact replica of what you are ordering, you could choose "Print Preview," then print to a PDF which is just as quick as printing to a printer. When you save it, you save it to a folder which is a shortcut to a real folder on your server. Your front desk also has a shortcut to the folder. So, you write the order, choose print preview, print it to PDF and save it to the now default shortcut folder.

Two years ago, we had a similar system, actually we just had faxes come into a folder. But, I wanted to be able to know when a fax came into that folder much the same way that Apple has its trash can get bigger or Microsoft has a sheet of paper in the Recycle Bin. I hired Ed to do that, but instead of that one simple two hour program with ten lines of code, one week later, File Assistant Pro was born.