Panelling patients is a great way to keep your clinic organized (and improve the patient experience). Ava allows each patient can be panelled to multiple practitioners at your clinic. This is helpful if there are practitioners at your clinic with different roles/specialties.

For those that are in Alberta, panelling is also the first step towards submitting to CPAR (Central Patient Attachment Registry).

Tutorial: Panelling Patients

To see how this would be useful – let’s look at how we can panel a patient (Djura Willem) at “Modern Medicine Clinic.” This patient’s family doctor is Dr. Yarnham, however, they see Dr. Gascoigne for sports medicine concerns.

1. Find the Patient Through the Patient Search

Find the patient through the patient search function (or open them on the patient sidebar). For this tutorial we’ll open the patient sidebar from the scheduler (open the sidebar by either clicking on the appointment or by searching for the patient in the ‘Patient Search’ field).

2. Click on the ‘Not Panelled at Modern Medicine’ link

If this patient was panelled at your current clinic (or within your clinic group) then it will display the name of the practitioner who has panelled the physician, as well as an icon.

Clicking on this link will open the “Panel Manager.”

3. Click on New Panel

4. Fill in the Form

Select which practitioner and which clinic this patient is being panelled to. Select which ‘Specialty’ (or role) this patient is being panelled into. In the case of Dr. Yarnham this will be ‘Family Medicine’ but in the case of Dr. Gascoigne this will be ‘Sports Medicine.’

The primary checkbox should be used if this is the patient’s “Primary” panel at your clinic. For example, in our case Dr. Yarnham (Family Medicine) would be the “Primary” panel and Dr. Gascoigne (Sports Medicine) would not be the primary panel.

5. (Optional) Click the “Confirmed/Validated” Button

Most panelling guidelines recommend adding a “last confirmed” date to panels and Ava follows this convention. This allows you and your staff to know when the patient was last asked if Dr. Yarnham is still their only primary family doctor.

It’s helpful to note that Ava does not automatically mark a patient as confirmed when they are added to the panel. Sometimes patients will be added to a panel before a meet and greet appointment but not actually “confirmed.” This allows clinics to panel a patient but leave the confirmed date blank. This process fits with how government agencies recommend panelling is performed in the community.

To mark the patient as confirmed (and automatically update the current date) click on the clock icon.

6. Repeat Steps 3-4 For Any Other Practitioners

In our example case Dr. Gascoigne wants to panel the patient to their Sports Medicine practice at Modern Medicine. This may or may not be relevant. Commonly clinics will want to mark which “Walk In” doctor the patient prefers while also having a “Family Medicine” doctor as well.

7. Updating the Confirmed Date

It’s best practice to ask patients if their family doctor is still their family doctor as often as possible. Ava makes it easy to update this by placing a clock icon in the grey “Demographics Panel” on the patient sidebar (and in the patient chart). If the patient is checking in and they confirm that Dr. Yarnham is still their family doctor, click the clock icon to update the “last confirmed” date.

You can still click on the link to open the “Panel Manager” but this is much quicker when clinic is busy.

Removing a Patient From Your Panel

1. Open the Panel Manager and Click on the Garbage Can

2. Select the Reason for Removing the Patient

3. To See the Historical Record Click on Panel History

Next Steps

Now that you’re able to panel patients in Ava it’s time to see what we can do with those panels! The most obvious first place to look is the Panel Profiles section which allows you to view panels (even panels that are shared between providers or across clinics).