Orders missing Expected Exam Date

Some questions have been coming in regarding a blank Expected Imaging date column.

A little history first. This column is filled in when an order is placed on an inpatient by an MD. If the MD does nothing, todays date is defaulted in. If they choose, they can enter any date they wish.

When an order is placed somewhere within the Dean system for an outpatient to have an exam, the order does NOT populate the Schedule Orders Report. So this is not a concern. You wouldn't want to weed through every order that gets placed in the Dean system!

However, what can happen that might lead to the Expected Exam Date column being empty is this. When our front desk staff enters an order into the system from a paper order, they are not entering the order in the same way an MD would. This means that the section of the order composer that defaults in that data is bypassed. This is not really a concern due to the following reasons.

When an outpatient paper order happens, one of two things happen.

• The order is placed in EPIC prior to the patient arriving. The order should then be immediatly scheduled by the front desk staff. This removes if from the Schedule Orders Report.
• The order is placed in EPIC when the patient arrives. The front desk then contacts you and there is no confusion as to when to perform the exam.

Therefore, the only time the column should be empty is between the time the paper order is entered into EPIC and the time it is placed on a schedule.

Hope that helps clear this issue up.