New Global Special Report

emsCharts has created a new “Global COVID-19” Special Report that can be used to gather additional information regarding patient encounters and assist with tracking of risk factors in your patient population. The “Global COVID-19” Special Report, as well as the pre-built Data Validations to require crews to complete the information before the chart can be locked is being made available to all services.

Once added to your service the Data Validations that are used to require the “Global COVID-19” Special Report will be set to Hidden by default, meaning that they will not be active in your service until you take action to enable them. This guide will explain how to add the new “Global COVID-19” Special Report to your service, as well as how to enable the Data Validations to require crew members to complete it on applicate calls.

COVID-19 Special Report

The “Global COVID-19” Special Report (Figure 1) is comprised of 5 questions to assist your service with tracking encounters with confirmed and suspected COVID-19 patients.

Figure 1: “Global COVID-19” Special Report

Adding the COVID-19 Special Report to your service

To add the new Special Report in your service, click on the Configuration link from the left-side menu in the emsCharts home page. This will take you to your services configuration page (Figure 2). From this page you will note a new COVID-19 Resources widget at the bottom of the page.

Clicking on the “Add COVID-19 Special Report to my configuration” link will create the new special report, as well as the data validations required to make it required for ever call that has an arrived on-scene time documented.

Figure 2: emsCharts Configuration Page

After the “Global COVID-19” Special Report has been added to your service you must take further action to enable it, as the configuration is set to Hidden by default.

From the configuration page you are currently on, click on the Code Tables tab and navigate to the Special Report Categories code table. From this page, find and select the Special Report named “Global COVID-19” (Figure 3) and select the options that you want. To use the Special Report, at a minimum, the fields

• “Service Can View”
• “Service Can Modify”,
• “Service Can Use”

should be set to “YES”.

If you wish to receive an email notification each time this special report is completed, enter your email address in the email box. This is not required, as special reports are saved and accessible in the system, regardless of if they are emailed.

Figure 3: Special Reports Code Table

Enable Data Validations for the Global COVID-19 Special Report

Once the new Special Report has been added to your service and has been configured in the previous steps, it is available for use, but is not yet required. The next steps will guide you on how to enable to Data Validations for the new special report, and ensure that it is completed on all calls that have a documented on-scene time.

From the Code Tables tab, Navigate to the Data Validation Rules Code Table. You will note a hidden (greyed out) rule at or near the top of the list called “* Global COVID-19 Special Report Required” (Figure 4). Select this rule and change the option for Hidden from “Yes” to “No”.

Figure 4: Data Validation Rules

From the Code Tables tab, Navigate to the Data Validation ACTIONS Code Table. Here you will note two new actions at or near the top of the list called “* Require all Global COVID-19 SR questions be answered” and “* Require Global COVID-19 SR”. As long as no changes were made to the “Global COVID-19 Special Report” after you added it to your service, no action is necessary here.

Changing Questions on the Global COVID-19 Special Report

If, after adding the “Global COVID-19 Special Report” to your service you make changes to the questions, by changing the verbiage or adding or removing questions, the Data Validation Action must be updated.

It is important to note that these Data Validation Actions are written specifically for the "Global COVID-19" Special Report, as it was published. If any changes are made to the questions listed in the "Global COVID-19" Special Report in your service, The Data Validations must be modified to reflect those changes, or they will prevent crews from being able to complete/lock their charts. The key for making each question required is to ensure that the criteria in the data validation matches the special report question exactly; letter for letter.