User Preferences policy

This list is to help GP surgeries create/update their policy and/or “check list” of User Preferences settings to change when new staff join. Your surgery should make its own decisions based on how you work.

Such a policy can be used to manually configure new staff or to create dummy "ZPREFERENCES" template preference accounts to copy from.

“Couldn’t we just copy User Preferences from an experienced staff member?”

Technically, yes… but important (and often informative) warning messages will not display for the new staff member creating holes in their knowledge. The existing member of staff has already seen, read, and understandably dismissed these warnings and this transfers to the new staff member.

User > User Preferences

1. Appointments
   1. Appointments > General Settings
      All staff: Set surgery preferred ‘Search Settings’ (Appointments Ledger or Appointments Overview)
      Reception/Admin staff: Set ‘Double-click on appointment’ as ‘View Patient Record’ or ‘Mark Arrived’ (depending on preference of user/surgery)
      Clinicians: Set ‘Double-click on appointment’ as ‘View Patient Record’/’Start Consultation’/’Call Appointment’ (depending on needs of surgery)
   2. Appointments > Staff Ordering
      Clinicians: Put the user’s own name at the top and any tutors/supervisors immediately after. This ensures they always appear first in appointment screens they view.
      Other staff: Tick ‘User the organisation preference instead of this user preference for staff ordering’ (this users order will now update centrally based on the order you maintain in Organisation Preferences)
   3. Appointments > Ledger Settings
      All staff: Consider ticking ‘Show panel on ledger which lists staff that are on leave on the day(s) selected on the calendar.
2. Configured Lists
   All staff: Consider ticking ‘Enable inline searching’, this allows staff to type in relevant list boxes rather than scrolling through a long drop-down list.
3. Forwarding Recipients
   Set a handful of Staff and/or User Groups that documents will be most-frequently forwarded to by that staff member or tasks sent to. e.g. GP Partners for admin, data/prescribing teams for GPs?
4. Navigation > Toolbars AND Patient Record > Tree Configuration
   Confirm user is set to use the most-appropriate toolbar/tree (hopefully already locked/set centrally by Organisation Preference permission rules)
5. Notifications
   Consider setting to only show prompt for urgent notification only.
6. Pathology > Filing
   Patient to be informed
7. Protocols
   Untick ‘Show the side window when running Protocols’
   (For most normal users i.e. those that will not troubleshoot protocols)
8. Patient Record > New Journal
   All staff: Consider
   1. Labels: Show full new Consultation labels (clearer for those new to healthcare)
   2. Show Read Codes: Untick (Irrelevant as coding is now SNOMED and causes confusion)
   3. Show associated SNOMED codes if available: Untick (too long, very difficult to read record)
9. Patient Record > Patient Home
   Consider Automatically re-evaluate QOF alerts
10. Prescribing
    1. Prescribing > Prescription Authorising
       NON-SIGNING STAFF: ‘ALWAYS AUTHORISE SCRIPTS WITH THE USUAL GP’
    2. Prescribing > Quick Print
       Non-signing staff: If surgery is non-dispensing, set Prescriptions to ‘Print them Later’ if your surgery primarily sends printed scripts to the signing and print queues.
11. Scanning > Document Processing
    Under Document Management > Default Scan Action.
    Will user mainly be forwarding scanned items or permanently filing them?
    Set either ‘Forward’ or ‘Complete’ as their default respectively.
12. Tasks > Receiving Tasks
    Disable the most frequent routine tasks at your surgery (not all tasks and not anything that could be urgent!) to prevent frequent pop-ups interfering with work.
    If user is not responsible for EPS Cancellation Rejections, disable these prompts too ensuring your have a suitable policy in place to deal with these tasks at any time someone might cancel an EPS issue.
13. Warnings
    When deploying new SystmOne units, the Clinical System Team disable these warnings that are redundant:
    1. Information about the changes to contraindication, precaution, and warning checking functionality which has been updated to use SNOMED CT
    2. Notifying of Tabbed Journal change
    3. Question asking whether to re-apply the patient after actioning a HA-GP Deduction message
    4. Show information when automatic course length calculator is triggered.
    5. Warning that Quick Print functionality has changed.

Other User Preferences

The following items are saved as User Preferences (when SystmOne closed correctly) but are not in the User Preferences menu and must be changed from the relevant screen on the account.

Tabbed Journal

Select the standard surgery filter from the drop-down (to hide empty events and items marked in error from the Journal). If you do not have a standard surgery filter, create one in Organisation Preferences for all to use.

Medication users (including admin support e.g Prescribing Clerks)

Drug & Appliance Browser

Turn on: Indicative pricing [£]

Turn off: ‘Discontinued / Withdrawn’ and ‘Non-prescribable / unlicensed’

Record acute medication/Create Repeat Template/Amend Repeat Template

Turn on: ‘Automatically convert doses’ [⚡] (next to ‘Dose’ field]

Print Issues

Issue script and Save. Turn off ‘Print Tokens’.
‼Immediately re-retrieve the record and mark the medication issue in error.

Signers

The following process allows you to setup Bulk signing token preferences.

1. Issue a medication item on Spine-enabled patients (ideally Spine-enabled test patient)
2. Click ‘Print un-printed issues’
3. Ensure a nominated pharmacy is selected and set ‘Print/Sign and Send Later’
4. Issue another medication item (can be a duplicate)
5. Save record
6. Untick nominated dispenser (so will be non-nominated script) and set ‘Print/Sign and Send Later’
7. Go to the “bulk signing” screen (Prescription Search) and sign the two scripts, setting token printing preferences. e.g. Not to print tokens for nominated scripts and either to print now or print later for non-nominated scripts (depending on surgery process).
8. ‼Immediately re-retrieve the record and mark the medication issues in error.
9. Action resulting EPS Cancellation tasks.