Clinical Guidelines
This page allows you to configure clinical guidelines for your practice, to provide greater flexibility and better integration with Pay for Performance measures. athenahealth is continually adding to the clinical guidelines available in athenaClinicals.
On the Main Menu, click Settings > Clinicals. In the left menu, under Practice Links — Quality Management, click Clinical Guidelines
To access this page, you must have the Clinicals Admin permission.
- Display the Clinical Guidelines page: On the Main Menu, click Settings > Clinicals. In the left menu, under Practice Links — Quality Management, click Clinical Guidelines.
- Specialty — Select the specialty to configure.
The hide/unhide updates that you make to a guideline apply to all providers in the selected specialty. Customizations apply to all specialties that use the guideline.
Use the filters at the top to locate a measure
- Program — Select the measure's program (optional).
- Status — Select the measure's status (optional).
- Guideline — Enter the first few characters of the guideline and select it from the matching list (optional).
- Click Filter to view the filtered list of guidelines.
Edit the guideline
- In the list of guidelines, click edit for the measure to edit.
Additional fields appear at the top of the page.
Note: The fields available for editing depend on the guideline that you selected. - Description — Description for this guideline.
- Frequency — Select how often this measure should be checked.
- Age Range — Enter the minimum and maximum ages of the age range for checking this measure.
- Click Save.
Note: You cannot delete measures, but you can hide any measures that your practice does not want to appear for providers in your practice. For example, in an OB practice, you can hide or show adult preventive care measures, according to your best practices. To reveal a hidden measure, click unhide.
Note: Updates to default age or frequency apply to all specialties that use the guideline.
Note: Some guidelines have complex rules concerning the timing of various doses and using fewer doses to fulfill a vaccine. These rules are indicated in the guideline Description.
- Display the Clinical Guidelines page: On the Main Menu, click Settings > Clinicals. In the left menu, under Practice Links — Quality Management, click Clinical Guidelines.
- Use the filter fields at the top of the page to locate the guideline to change.
- Click edit for the vaccine guideline to change.
The input fields appear.
Note: The available input fields vary depending on the type of guideline selected. - Alert Start Date — Indicates the age at which this vaccine guideline appears in the Quality section in the patient chart.
- May Administer Early — If you want a vaccine that is administered earlier than the Alert Start Date to count towards satisfying this vaccine guideline, select this option. The As early as date fields appear, so that you can select the earliest allowable start date that the dose can be fulfilled.
- Alert Until — Indicates the age at which this guideline can no longer be satisfied. At this point, it is removed from the Quality section as well.
- Age Range — The ages for which this guideline appears on the Quality section.
If the Age Range end date is later than the Alert Until date of the last dose, the vaccine continues to appear on the Quality section, but cannot be fulfilled after the Alert Until date.
If the Age Range end date is earlier than the Alert Until date of a dose, the guideline no longer appears on the Quality section after the Age Range end date. - To add or edit a note, click Options > Add Note.
- Click Save.
Note: Updates to the default age or frequency apply to all specialties that use the guideline.
To request a new guideline, please contact the CSC from athenaOne > Support > Success Community > Contact Client Support Center.
Authorized users can use the Specialty menu at the top of the Clinical Guidelines page to update specialty defaults. Users can hide guidelines and update the default ages that patients receive guidelines, as well as the frequency that a guideline is expected to be fulfilled.
Note: Updates to default age or frequency apply to all specialties that use the guideline.
Some specialties, such as pediatrics, have preconfigured guidelines as their athenaOne defaults. Other specialties, such as orthopedics, where guidelines may not be as commonly used, are set to hide all guidelines by default. Please verify that the guidelines are configured as expected for each practice specialty, and update them as appropriate for your practice.
Tip: To see a provider's specialty, display the Providers page, locate the provider in the list at the bottom of the page, and view the Specialty column.
For detailed information about how to set specialty-specific guideline preferences, please see the documents in About Clinical Guidelines on the Success Community.
Specialty | Select the specialty to configure. The hide/unhide updates you make to a guideline apply to all providers in the selected specialty. Customizations apply to all specialties that use the guideline. |
Filter Guidelines | |
Program | Select the measure's program (optional). |
Status | Select the measure's status (optional). |
Guideline | Enter the first few characters of the guideline and select it from the matching list (optional). |
Existing Guidelines | |
Program | The name of the Quality Management program associated with the guideline. |
Guideline | The name of the guideline. |
Description | The description of the guideline. |
Frequency | The frequency with which the guideline should be checked. |
Age Range | The age of the patients to which the guideline applies. |