Letters, Discharge Summaries and Results

Some confusion exists as to the final destination of files that do not contain Investigations Results. There are three locations within a patient's record where Results, Letters and Discharge Summaries are stored, depending on the content of the file and the testname used.

A recent trend has been for specialists to send their reports in either PIT or HL7 format to be processed with Investigations files. Hospitals are starting to send Discharge Summaries to surgeries in either PIT or HL7 format.

An HL7 file with the words 'Letter', 'Document', 'Correspondence' or 'Summary' in the testname or if the testname has been excluded will be stored in Letters.

Any PIT or HL7 file containing the words 'Discharge Summary' in the testname will be stored in Documents or Letters depending on the setting in Tools > Options > RSD. Any HL7 file that contains an RF1 segment will be stored in Documents or Letters depending on the setting in Tools > Options > RSD irrespective of the testname used. RF1 segments are only found in Discharge Summaries.

All others are regarded as investigation results and are stored in the Results page in the patient record and in the Investigation Results window.

Documents stored in the patients Letters or Documents pages do not appear in the Investigation Results window. Most frequently these are documents sent from specialists or hospitals.