This article provides an overview of the DrFirst patient information screen, detailing how to access and interact with various patient data widgets, including demographics, medications, allergies, and prescription management.

Permissions Required

No specific BestNotes permissions are required.

Understanding the DrFirst Patient Information Screen

The patient information screen serves as an individual patient's "homepage" within DrFirst, offering access to essential patient data through various widgets:

• Demographics
• Medications
• Allergies
• Problems
• Pending prescriptions

This screen also provides information on practice details, patient demographics, encounter information, pharmacy details, prescription benefits, pharmacy messages, and tools to create new prescriptions, manage medications, allergies, diagnoses/problems, and pending prescriptions.

You can access this information from any page by selecting the patient's name in the context bar located in the top left corner.

Practice Information

The name of the location you are prescribing from is displayed in the top right-hand corner. If you are connected to multiple locations, you can click on the location name to select the correct one from a drop-down menu. Always review this information before prescribing to ensure the correct practice details appear on the prescription heading.

Patient Demographic Information

The "Patient" widget displays various demographic fields for the patient, such as First Name, Last Name, Sex, DOB, Home Phone, and Address. These items are imported from and managed within BestNotes. Other information like height and weight are also displayed; however, this information is not connected between BestNotes and DrFirst and should be recorded in both programs.

Encounter Information

A patient's encounter information should be recorded and managed within BestNotes.

Pharmacy Information

Pharmacy information is located within the Patient widget. The drop-down box can hold details for up to five pharmacies for the patient. From here, you can easily search for new pharmacies, remove unneeded ones, and obtain pharmacy details such as NCPDP (pharmacy license number), address, phone, and fax.

Prescription Benefit

Prescription benefit information is sourced from SureScripts and payer claims data. If a patient has multiple plans, select the correct benefit plan using the drop-down arrow within the prescription benefit section. This information allows DrFirst to alert users about medications that are on or off formulary and suggest on-formulary alternatives when available.

Pharmacy Messages

Pharmacy messages are electronic requests generated by a pharmacy, which may include refill requests for completed medication refills, change requests, or cancellation acknowledgments. These messages can be accessed from the "Calendar" tab in BestNotes or by selecting the pharmacy message icon on the top right of the screen in DrFirst.

Create New Prescription

You can quickly search for a medication to write a prescription manually by selecting the "Create New Prescription" button, or you can use your favorites list to select a previously favored medication.

Medications

The medications section displays all active medications for a patient. From here, you can quickly manage medications by adding new ones, starting or stopping existing ones, or renewing/prescribing medications.

Allergies

In the allergies section, you can document a patient's allergies or adverse reactions to medications. This information should be managed within DrFirst and will automatically pull into BestNotes.

Diagnoses/Problems

This section displays diagnoses that were entered into BestNotes; the diagnoses in DrFirst are for display only. However, you can select a diagnosis within the "Prescribe Medication" widget, and it will be placed on the prescription.

Prescription Management

The prescription management widget displays any pending prescriptions for a patient. This is where a provider or provider agent can send multiple prescriptions.

Save and Close

To ensure all DrFirst data is pulled into BestNotes, make sure to exit DrFirst at the end of each session by selecting the drop-down in the top right corner and choosing "Save and Close." This action transmits the information entered in DrFirst to BestNotes.