Understanding and Using Novari ATC Pools

Understanding and Using Novari ATC Pools

A pool is a system in Novari ATC where groups of providers collaboratively manage a shared list of patients awaiting a defined set of procedures. In this arrangement, patients can have their procedures performed by any provider within the group, typically by the first available provider, enhancing efficiency and reducing wait times.

Using pools also enables the creation of shared pool blocks in providers’ calendars. This allows multiple providers to share a single block date for scheduling procedures without the need to create numerous individual blocks. These pool blocks are specific to a particular pool, ensuring that only patients within that pool are scheduled during those designated times.

This coordinated approach improves resource utilization, streamlines scheduling processes, and provides greater flexibility in managing surgical services within healthcare facilities.

Two Examples of Using Pools

1. Centralized wait list of patients requiring a defined procedure such as a colonoscopy

   • Rotating schedule of providers doing scopes per day.

   • Patients are booked onto the day - could be any provider as Most Responsible Provider (MRP) when added.

   • When time to book slates, cases are pulled off the main wait list and put into a block (completing provider may be unknown at that time).

   • Post-procedurally (case completion) case is completed by changing to the actual provider.  

2. Offering first available

   • Hip and knee replacement patients are seen in consultation by Dr A.

   • Patient is offered surgery with the next available provider.  

   • When next up on the wait list, the patient is transferred off the pool wait list to the provider’s wait list, who could be Dr A or another provider.  

Pool Management

It is a requirement that any case on a pooled wait list must have an assigned Most Responsible Provider (MRP). The MRP must be a member of the pool.  

Pool Authority

Some users may be deemed to be the ‘pool authority’. These users may or may not work for a provider but have been granted full access to one or more pools. Full access means the pool authority can manage all the cases in the pool regardless of provider, including assigning a case to another provider.  

Pool Administrator

A pool administrator has permission to create recurring blocks in the pool calendar. The pool administrator may also be a pool authority or could manage a provider’s non-pooled elective surgical wait list.

Steps to Success

1. Define and then create your pool or pools

   1. You need access to the Administrator module to create and manage pools.  

   2. Pools are created within a health center and designate the care venue(s), service(s), provider(s), diagnosis category(ies), and procedure(s).

   3. Once a pool has patients added to it, you are limited to what changes you can subsequently make to that pool.

   4. There is no limit to the number of pools you can have.

   5. You cannot delete a pool, but you can make it inactive.

2. Create your pool groups

   1. You need access to the Security module to create and manage pool groups.

   2. Pool groups are similar to provider groups.

   3. Pools are added to pool groups. A pool group can contain multiple pools.

   4. Pool groups define:

      1. Which Novari ATC modules the pool group members have access to.

      2. Whether the members have full access or read only access to the modules.

      3. Which users belong to the pool group. Note: a user can belong to a pool group, multiple pool groups, a provider group and a pool group, or multiple pool groups and multiple provider groups.

3. Add patients to a pool. Patients can be added to pools in two ways:  

   1. By selecting the Pooled List instead of Provider List when adding the patient to the provider’s wait list.  

Note: Some users may only have access to the pool and can only add patients to the pooled list.

b. By transferring a patient from a provider’s list to a pooled list.

1. Create pool blocks in Provider’s Office Calendar.

   1. Pool blocks are used to block out a period and can be used by all providers in the pool to schedule patients.

      Note: not all pool users can create pool blocks or may be limited to creating one-off pool blocks. Other users may have permission to create recurring pool blocks.

2. Add pooled patients to the pool block.

3. Complete the pool patient case as per usual.

Creating a Pool – Administrator Module

To create a pool, you need permission to the Administrator module.

When adding a pool, you enter the two mandatory fields, create the pool, and then continue editing the pool to add the services, care venues, providers, diagnoses, and procedures.

Before creating a pool, services, care venues, providers, diagnoses, and procedures must exist in Metadata Management Tool.

To add a pool:

• From Application Configurations on the Administrator Dashboard, select Application Settings and then select Metadata Management Tool.

• In the Metadata Management Tool, select POOL to display the list of pools.

• On the Edit page, select Add Pool.

• On Metadata Management Tool: Pool, enter a Pool Code and Pool Description, for example, EMERG and Emergency Surgery.

• Optionally, change the default setting of Pool Permissions Mode. Choose between users having access to all providers in the pool or restricting the users to only those who have access to the provider in a non-pool mode, which is through a Provider Group.

• Click Create Pool.  

• The pool you just created is displayed with the Related Services, Related Care Venues, Related Providers, Related Diagnosis Categories and Related Procedures enabled for editing.

• Edit each of the items, selecting the service or services, care venue or care venues, providers, diagnosis or diagnoses, and procedure or procedures. You must have a minimum of one entry for each Related item.

• When you have selected a valid combination, the Pool Active Status is enabled, and you can make the pool active.

• Select Update Pool.

Pool Permissions Mode

Create a Pool Group – Security Module

To create a pool group, do one of the following:

• Select Create a New Pool Group from the Security dashboard.

• Select Create a New Pool Group from the Groups menu in the Security toolbar.

• BEFORE A POOL APPEARS ON THE LIST WHEN CREATING A NEW POOL GROUP, POOLS MUST FIRST BE ADDED THROUGH THE ADMINISTRATOR MODULE. CHOOSE METADATA MANAGEMENT TOOL FROM APPLICATION SETTINGS UNDER APPLICATION CONFIGURATION ON THE ADMINISTRATOR DASHBOARD.

In Create a New Pool Group,

• Select the Health Center.

• Select one or more Care Venues. You must select at least one.

• Enter a name for this group.

• Select the Application Type. This will be Provider’s Office module. User Preferences module (application type) is automatically added.

• Set the Privacy Level and Privilege Level.

Privilege Levels

The Privilege Level controls whether a user can make changes to the wait list, for example, add patients, perform audits, schedule surgical procedures. The options are:

• Full Access: The user has full access to the functionality of the pages they visit.  

• Read-Only Access: The user may only take actions which do not alter the state of any cases. In this case, a user would not be able to create a new case or schedule an appointment; however, a user with read-only access can, for example, view lists, cases, schedules, and reports and print an OR Booking form.

Privacy Levels

The Privacy level determines what patient and provider information users belonging to this group are allowed to see. There are four levels of privacy:

• Privacy Toggle (Default Off): Patient identifiers and provider names are displayed. The user can turn on and off privacy. Privacy is off by default.  

• Privacy Toggle (Default On): Patient identifiers and provider names are hidden. The user can turn on and off privacy. Privacy is on by default.  

• Forced Patient Privacy: Patient identifiers are permanently hidden. The user cannot toggle the privacy as the privacy toggle controls will be disabled.  

• Forced Patient & Provider Privacy: Similar to ‘Forced Patient Privacy’ but providers’ names are also hidden. The privacy cannot be toggled.  

• Select one or more pools. Adding pools to the group gives the group users access to the patient data for the providers in the pool. For example, Provider’s Office users have access to and can manage the pool providers’ wait list. Care Venue users see the pool providers’ scheduled patients. Patient Registration users see the pool providers’ patients who have demographic changes to be cleared. However, this is also dependent on the setting for pools and which providers they have access to, that is, access to all providers in the pool or access to only the providers the users have access to through their user group(s)

• Select Create Pool Group.

Some Typical Pool User Roles  

What users can do with pools depends on the pool permission mode, the pool group permission, and the provider group permission. The following are some typical pool user roles and their permissions.

Medical Office Assistant/Surgeon Office Assistant

Rita works for Dr Grey, a general surgeon. Dr Grey has her own wait list but is also part of a group of general surgeons who share a pool of patients needing specific procedures and who will be seen by the first available surgeon.

Rita is a member of Dr Grey’s provider group and the GenSurgery pool group.

Pool Permission Mode: User must have access to provider in non-pooled mode.

Provider Group Permission: Provider’s Office module with Full Access privilege.

Pool Group Permission: Provider’s Office module with full access to the pool.

What Rita can do:

• Add a patient to the provider’s wait list or the pool wait list and manage the patient

• Transfer a patient from the provider’s list to the pool list and vice versa

• See the provider’s and the pool’s surgical blocks in Calendar

• Add a one-off surgical block in the pool calendar

• Schedule a pool patient using any of the pool surgical blocks in the pool calendar

• Send a pool block to Care Venue

What Rita cannot do:

• Create a recurring surgical block in the pool calendar

Pool Scheduler

Sabrina works as an internal scheduler at the hospital. She does not work for a provider, but she is responsible for adding patients to the respirology pool regardless of who the provider is and ensuring they are scheduled.

Sabrina belongs to a provider group, but the group does not have access to any providers. The provider group has full access to the Care Venue module. Sabrina does belong to the respirology pool with full access to Provider’s Office module there so she can manage the group calendar.

Remember, the pool contains all the providers who can use the pool and those are the only ones Sabrina is interested in.

Pool Permission Mode: User has access to all providers in the pool  

Provider Group Permission: Care Venue with full access to the pool.

Pool Group Permission: Provider’s Office module with full access to the pool.

What Sabrina can do:

• Add patients to the pool and manage the patients

• Can use any of the existing pool blocks for scheduling patients

What Sabrina cannot do:

• Create a one-off surgical block on the pool calendar

• Create a recurring surgical block to the pool calendar

• Access any of the provider’s personal wait lists

• Transfer a patient out of a pool to a provider’s wait list and vice versa

• Submit a pool block to Care Venue

Pool Authority/Administrator

A pool authority or pool administrator is someone who needs to create recurring surgical blocks in a pool and submit them to Care Venue. A pool administrator is often a hospital employee but could be a provider’s office assistant or a pool scheduler. It does not have to be a separate role, but best practice suggests that only one or two individuals be given permission to create recurring surgery blocks in the pool.

Like Sabrina, Sacha is responsible for managing the pool and creating the recurring surgery blocks for the pool when the new surgery schedule is published. She is also responsible for ensuring pool blocks are fully utilized, patients aren’t left waiting for surgery, and that pool blocks are submitted to Care Venue in a timely manner.

To enable this, a new pool group is created that grants that permission. Generally, this pool group is given a name with ‘Admin’ to differentiate it from pool groups with similar names. For example, you may have a Respirology Scheduler pool group and a Respirology Admin pool group.

NOTE: A POOL GROUP ADMINISTRATOR MUST BELONG TO ANOTHER POOL GROUP THAT HAS ACCESS TO THE POOL.

Provider group permission: Provider’s Office module with full access

Pool Permission Mode: User has access to all providers in the pool  

Pool Group Permission: Provider’s Office module with full access to the pool

Admin Pool Group Permission: Administrator module with full access to the pool

What Sacha as the pool administrator can do:

• Add patients to the pool and manage the patient

• Can use any of the existing pool blocks for scheduling patients

If Sacha is also a member of the provider group with full access to the providers, she can

• Access any of the providers’ wait lists

• Transfer a patient out of a pool to a provider’s personal wait list

• Create a one-off surgical block on the pool calendar

• Create a recurring surgical block to the pool calendar

• Submit a pool block to Care Venue

Provider’s Office Pooled Lists

Novari ATC can be used to manage patients for multiple providers as a single list, that is, a pooled wait list. Your site administrator sets up the pools.

The blue background of the cases indicates they belong to a surgical pool, as opposed to the more typical single provider list which has grey background.

In a pool, member providers share pooled OR time and all pooled patients can be managed by the provider’s office, or by a third-party defined as the pool authority.  

Important: Once a patient is sent to a pool, they can be fully managed by the pool authority. By sending a patient to a pool, the pool authority is granted express permission to fully manage the case, including the ability to transfer the case to any other provider in the pool.

When managing a provider belonging to a pool, you may view (but not edit) all patients within the pool, regardless of who the current provider is for the case. As such, it is important to remember that all pool member provider’s offices can see (but not edit) the patients belonging to the same pool.

Much like a provider, a pool can have access to multiple care venues. The pool also has its own set of diagnoses and procedures which are maintained by the site administrator.

A provider can be a member of any number of pools while still maintaining their own personal wait list. Providers may have their own patients and manage their own OR time independently of any pool they belong to.

View List and Pool List

When a provider has been granted permission to a pool, you will see an option to display a pooled wait list instead of the provider’s wait list.

Pooled patients have a blue background to differentiate them from the provider’s non-pooled patients.

When viewing a pooled wait list, you can see all patients in the pool or just your patients.

Alternatively, you can see pooled patients listed with the provider’s other patients by selecting Show Pooled Patients. Pooled patients have a blue background instead of the standard grey.

Accessing Pooled Wait Lists – Two Ways

Generally, Novari ATC Provider’s Office users have access to pools through their provider. For example, Rita (she/her) is a medical office assistant for Dr Grey. As such, she can see Dr Grey’s personal wait list of patients and patients in any pool of which Dr Grey is a member. Rita signs into Novari ATC, navigates to Provider’s Office and selects Dr Grey from the list of providers that she works for. As shown above, Rita can switch between Dr Grey’s personal wait list of elective surgery cases and pooled wait lists.

If Rita only wants to see the pooled wait lists (and this would be how a pool authority would see the pools), she can sign in directly to the pools. Rita signs into Novari ATC, navigates to Provider’s Office, does not select a provider but selects Continue.

This signs Rita into all the pools she has permission to.

The first pool (alphabetically) is displayed.

Rita does not have access to her provider’s personal wait list.

Adding a Patient to a Pool – Add Patient Process

Adding a pooled patient is the same as adding a patient to the provider’s wait list except for selecting which List Type to add the patient under.

Select Pooled List. Add the patient per usual. Depending on how the pool was created by your site administrator, the diagnosis category and procedure may be automatically populated with a default value, or you may be limited to a few choices.

Pooled patients are indicated by the pool symbol on Case Details page next to the patient’s demographics. Notice the case details have a blue background instead of the standard grey.

Adding a Case to a Pool – Transferring

A case added to a provider’s wait list can be transferred to a pool wait list and vice versa.

To transfer a case to a pool:

• Select the transfer arrow at the right side of the case record in View List

• In Transfer Case, select the pool you want to transfer this case to

• Select Request Transfer

• Select Transfers from List menu

• Select the receiving pool from the list

• Select Accept to complete the transfer to the pool or Reject to cancel the transfer

Removing a Case from a Pool – Transferring

To transfer a case from a pool:

• Select the transfer arrow at the right side of the case record in Pool List

• In Transfer Case, select the provider you want to transfer this case to. You may need to select the appropriate care venue.

• Select Request Transfer

• Select Transfers from List menu

• Select Currently Selected Providers from Show me.

• Select Accept to complete the transfer to the pool or Reject to cancel the transfer

Transferring Responsibility

A user who has authority to manage all cases in a pool, this could be the pool authority, can transfer case responsibility from one provider to another.

To transfer responsibility:

• Find the pooled patient (Pool List or View List), and select the transfer icon for the case to be transferred

• In the Transfer Case dialog, select Transfer Responsibility

• Select the provider to whom the case is being transferred and care venue, if there is more listed

• Select Request Transfer

Scheduling Pooled Patients in Provider’s Office Calendar

A provider who has a personal wait list and is a member of a pool wait list will see both personal blocks and pool blocks on their Calendar. Pool blocks are identified with a blue background, as shown below.

Pool blocks cannot be managed when viewing the provider’s personal wait list calendar. You must select the pool first.

Creating Pool Blocks

Any provider who is a member of a pool group can create and manage a pool block for pools that are assigned to that pool group.

For information about creating scheduling blocks, please refer to Novari ATC Provider’s Office User Guide in the Novari ATC Help Centre.

Scheduling Pooled Patients in Provider’s Office Calendar – Compactor Mode

Pooled patients are scheduled in the same way in a pool block as they are a non-pool block with one exception: empty appointments.

When you remove a pooled patient from a pool block, an empty appointment is automatically created to take its place. This ensures the following appointments’ start and end times, which may have been created by other providers, are not adjusted.

Adding an Unbooked Patient to an Empty Appointment

You can add a pooled patient to an empty appointment if the patient’s case is shorter in duration than the empty appointment.

To add an Unbooked Patient to an Empty Appointment:

• Double-click in the white area of an Unbooked Patient

• In the Empty Appointment dialog, choose an empty appointment to fill. You will only be shown empty appointments that have sufficient time.  

• Click Submit

Editing and Deleting Empty Appointments

To edit an Empty Appointment:

• In the Empty Appointment dialog, enter a different start time and/or duration

• Select Submit

• The block’s scheduled cases will readjust if needed

To delete an Empty Appointment:

• Select the Delete icon for the empty appointment

• Confirm you want to delete the empty appointment.

Scheduling Pooled Patients from Pool List or View List using the Mini-Scheduler

You can schedule a pooled patient from Pool List or View List:

• Select the calendar icon in the Current Surgical Date column.

• In the Surgery Date Change dialog, select Assign a New Surgery Date or Assign to First Available Slot

• In the Scheduler, select an appointment. You can fill an empty appointment, if one is available, or book the next available appointment.

• The Scheduler dialog closes, you return to your list and the selected surgical date and time are displayed in the Current Surgical Date column for the patient.

Schedule Pooled Patients in Calendar using Slate Mode

Scheduling pooled patients in a pool block in slate mode is the same as scheduling non-pooled patients with one exception: empty appointments are not created in Slate Mode when a patient is unbooked.

For more information about scheduling in slate mode, please refer to Novari ATC Provider’s Office User Guide in the Novari ATC Help Centre.