'Generic' Format
| Field | Size | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| External ID | 9 | Unique identifying code for each patient. May contain letters or numbers in character format. Needs to be unique as it is used as a key to identify patients and their associated medications, history, and so forth. Should be generated by the system when a new patient record is initiated. |
| Patient Surname | 30 | Patient's surname. If the patient goes by a single name, this field will be blank |
| Patient First Name | 30 | Patient's first name. For patients who go by a single name; If the FIRSTNAME data is 'ONLYNAME' or '.' or Spaces, it will be identified as being a Single Name when imported into Clinical or Pracsoft (via the Link File Processor, DDE, or the Import Demographics utility). f the FIRSTNAME is 'ONLYNAME' or '.' when imported, it will be converted to an empty string by Clinical/Pracsoft. The 'Delete data in Clinical' option (Link File Processor) ignores the FIRSTNAME field. |
| Patient Title | 6 | Patient's first name. For patients who go by a single name, this field will be exported as an empty string. |
| Patient Date of Birth | 8 | Date of birth in format dd/mm/yyyy |
| Patient Address | 154 | Street and Number. Can contain up to three lines of information, separated by CSV. |
| Patient City | 30 | City or Suburb |
| Patient Postcode | 4 | Post Code |
| Patient Chart Number | 10 | Chart/Record number if recorded in Clinical or Pracsoft. |
| Patient Pension Number | 14 | If the patient has a Pension Status of 'Pension/HCC' (as recorded in Clinical or Pracsoft), this field will indicate the patient's Pension Number. However, if the patient's pension status is 'none', this field will be blank. |
| Patient DVA Number | 20 | If the patient has a Pension Status of 'Full DVA' or 'Limited DVA' (as recorded in Clinical or Pracsoft), this field will indicate the patient's DVA Number. However, if the patient's pension status is 'none', this field will be blank. |
| Patient Pension Code | 1 | If the patient has a qualifying Pension Status, this field will indicate the patient's Pension Number. However, if the patient's pension status is 'none', this field will be blank. |
| Patient Saftey Net Number | 14 | Safety Net number, if recorded in Clinical. |
| Patient Medicare Number | 12 | Patient's Medicare Number if recorded in Clinical or Pracsoft. |
| Empty | 0 | Blank. |
| Empty | 0 | Blank. |
| Doctor Provider Number | 8 | Practitioner's Provider Number. |
| Doctor Code | 6 | If integrated with Pracsoft, the User ID recorded Pracsoft. |
| Immunisation Date | 10 | Date on which immunisation was recorded in Clinical. This is not necessarily the date on which the immunisation was actually administered. |
| Vaccine Name | 50 | Name of the recorded vaccine. |
| Immunisation Sequence | 1 | If entered when recording an immunisation. Otherwise this field is left blank. |
| Immunisation Batch No | 15 | If entered when recording an immunisation. Otherwise this field is left blank. This number should not contain spaces (can be enforced via the setting 'Enforce AIR Validation rules to batch numbers for the purpose of Medicare Australia claims' within Advanced Link Options). |
"000000021"|"ANDERSON"|"Penny"|"Mrs"|
"Top Floor, Rum Tower, 61 Wallace Street"|"Bundaberg"|"4670"|""|""|""|" "|""|"6288 25344 3"|
""|""|"2426621B"|"AP "|"24/10/2016"|"ACTHIB"|"2"|"12345667889"PATIENTS.IN Format
The PATIENTS.IN file is used as an interface between MedicalDirector Clinical and a billing package to transfer patient demographic data into Clinical. The format (referred to as 'Generic ASCII v2') is most commonly used by third-party packages to implement a link to MedicalDirector Clinical and is the official standard for passing data to MedicalDirector Clinical using the link file method.
The concept is that the 'sending' application writes information to a file named PATIENTS.IN (which conforms to the 'Generic ASCII v2' specification listed below) every time a new patient is added or a patient's details edited. With the link activated, Clinical checks the PATIENTS.IN approximately every sixty seconds, and if it is not empty, reads in the contents, and clears the file. It then processes this data, and adds the information it finds to its database.
The PATIENTS.IN file does not need to reside in the same directory as Clinical. A setting in the Link Option enables a path to be set to the PATIENTS.IN file from anywhere on the computer. Note: Network Paths and Mapped Network Drives are not supported.
MedicalDirector Clinical locks the file during reading, so if an attempt to write to the file is made while Clinical has it open, it will fail and may need to be retried. Generally, MedicalDirector Clinical should only have the file open for less than 1 second, so a loop to retry for several seconds should ensure that the file can be opened.