advanced directives: retrieving documents through eclipsys

Advanced Directives: Retrieving Documents Through Eclipsys

Department of Clinical InformaticsNurse Educator Meeting March 7, 2011

Developed Reviewed 3/1/11 cm

Finding an Existing Advance Directive in Eclipsys from Powerchart• In order to complete the Adult Nursing History in the

EPR, you will need to check with the patient/family to find out if there is an existing Advance Directive.

• If there is an existing Advance Directive from a prior visit it can be viewed by clicking on the “Eclipsys Links” bar on the Menu.

• Advance Directive documents include:– Health Care Proxy– Living Will

• Follow these steps described in slides 3 - 10

Created by Clinical Informatics

Open the patient’s record and click on Eclipsys Links bar on navigator menu within patient’s chart. This opens the Eclipsys Charts page.


Click to open Entire Chart



- Testpatient, Name (MRN123456, DOB 3/15/2011)

Then click on the patient name. The most recent Advance Directive will populate in the Document List .

Click on the advance directive to open the scanned document. You will need to know the type of advance directive, the name of the health care agent and relationship to the patient to complete the Adult Nursing History.


If there are no Advance Directive documents available when you click on the patient name, an Advanced Directive document may still be viewable at the encounter level of the chart. To find a document scanned from a previous encounter, open each inpatient encounter separately. Documents are categorized alphabetically and will be easily viewed in the document list

Go to Adult Nursing History

• Click on the Advance Directive bar from the left side of the screen

• Open the Advance Directive page• Enter the information

(See next page for screen shot)


Additional Points:

• You CANNOT print from Eclipsys – it is view only• The patient may provide a copy of the document which can

be copied and placed in the chart and presented to HIM (Health Information Management aka Medical Records) for scanning into Eclipsys if it is not already there

• A Social Work consult is automatically generated when the following choices are selected on the Advance Directives page of the Adult Nursing History:– Unable to assess– In Eclipsys, unable to verify– Yes, currently not with the patient


Additional Points (continued):• To view the scanned documents more easily, use the

navigation buttons on the tool bar at the top of the scanned document page when you are in Eclipsys:


Use the buttons to move between pages of the document

Use these buttons to increase the document size for easier reading

References and Resources:

• Administrative Policy RI:0016 Advance Directives• From the Intranet → Resources → Manuals

– http://inside.hospital.stonybrook.edu/sbuh/cerner/pubs/EclipsysViewingPatientDocuments.pdf
