Last review date 03/02/2023

WARNING! By leaving a group it immediately removes all copies of shared resources and your practice will no longer have access to them. 

WARNING! If you are the owner of a group and you leave or delete the group, all templates and resources linked to this group will be deleted for your practice and for all other practices who are part of this group. This cannot be undone.


Over time, practices often accumulate lots of templates and resources on their SystmOne unit. These may have been created by current or previous practice staff, or may be part of a organisation group that you are part of. This can create a significant clinical governance risk for you and your practice by using out-of-date templates and resources, when creating your own templates. Ardens has as strict governance policy and specific insurance to cover this risk, but if you are creating your own templates and resources, you should ensure that you also have the appropriate insurance in place to cover the risk of any potential subsequent patient harm or recall process that is required. Having active out-of-date templates on your SystmOne can also mean that your staff can accidentally use the incorrect templates and miss potential income from QOF or Enhanced Services. By having numerous templates on your SystmOne can also have potential performance and slowdown issues on your SystmOne too.


Ardens therefore advises that practices perform the following 'Housekeeping' tasks on an annual basis, including leaving any organisation groups that you no longer need to be part of and then deactivating or deleting any unused templates, views, protocols and reports.


Step 1: Organisation Groups - Leave Any Un-needed Groups

As a practice, it is likely that you are a member of numerous organisation groups on SystmOne that have been set-up to facilitate collaborative working between neighbouring practices, localities or CCGs. Some of these groups may have been created years ago, yet still contain active templates, automatic consultations, formularies, patient status alerts, protocols, questionnaires, reports, word letter templates and URLs.

 

Action to take

  • Find out which organisation groups you are part of by going to 'Setup > Users & Policy > Organisational Groups' 
  • Click on each group and then click the 'Shared Content' tab to see what has been shared
  • Leave any groups that you no longer need to be part of. To do this, just right click on the group name and select  'Leave Group' 
  • If you need to remain part of the group you may need to contact the group owner and ask them to remove any out-of-date, duplicated or inappropriately shared item


WARNING! By leaving a group it immediately removes all copies of shared resources and your practice will no longer have access to them. 

WARNING! If you are the owner of a group and you leave or delete the group, all templates and resources linked to this group will be deleted for your practice and for all other practices who are part of this group. This cannot be undone.



 


Step 2: Views - Deactivate & Delete

Whether you belong to multiple groups or not, there will be some views on your system that are either out-of-date or never used that can be deactivated or even deleted. 


Action to take

  • Go to 'Setup > Data Output > View Maintenance'. 
  • Deactivate all views except for 'Home Visit' summaries and other summaries that you wish to print (by making them inactive, the view will still be visible on any data entry template). To do this, just un-tick the 'active' box.
  • Delete any local views that are no longer required. It is advisable to deactivate these initially and then delete them a week or so later once you are happy that they are definitely not being used by anyone. 





Step 3: Protocols - Delete & Deactivate

One of the problems with protocols is that they are often built locally with good intentions but linked to a very large report which can cause significant performance issues.


Action to take

  • Go to 'Setup > Workflow Support > Protocols' and the easiest way to view the protocols is by expanding 'By Availability' on the left and selecting each folder in turn.
  • Deactivate any protocols that are no longer used. To do this, just un-tick the 'active' box. We advise that all the Ardens protocols are left active. For any protocols that you leave active, ensure that their filter or trigger is not linked to a large report.
  • Delete any protocols if they are not going to be used again. It is advisable to deactivate these initially and then delete them a week or so later once you are happy that they are definitely not being used by anyone.




Step 4: Templates - Deactivate & Delete

It is good practice to review the list of active templates for your practice and deactivate or delete any templates that are either out of date or not used locally. If you belong to any organisational groups that share templates, you cannot delete these templates can only make them inactive. In this instance, you should then review whether you still need to be a member of that group (see Step 1 above).


Action to take

  • Go to 'Setup > Data Entry > New Template Maintenance' and the easiest way to view the templates is by expanding 'By Availability' on the left and selecting each folder in turn.
  • Deactivate any templates that are no longer used. To do this, just un-tick the 'active' box. We advise that all the Ardens templates are left active. 
  • Delete any templates that are not going to be used again. It is advisable to deactivate these initially and then delete them a week or so later once you are happy that they are definitely not being used by anyone.

There are also a group of templates under 'Setup > Data Entry >Old Template Maintenance' . These are being phased out in favour of the new templates which have greater functionality. 


Note: There is an issue with deactivating many templates in that if you achieve approximately 37% deactivation of all templates on your system you will see a prompt telling you that  "You have marked too many Templates as inactive for the current unit. Delete or reactivate some others before attempting to mark any more as inactive for the current unit".   




Step 5: Other Items


6.1 Automatic Consultations - Deactivate & Delete

Go to 'Setup > Workflow Support > Automatic Consultations' and any that are not labelled as 'Ardens' should be deactivated and if possible deleted. If you have some local automatic consultations that you want to appear at the top of the list above the Ardens ones, just rename their category/folder with 'aa' at the beginning. For ease of use, also look at condensing your local Auto Consultations into a smaller number of categories/folders.


6.2 Patient Status Alerts - Deactivated & Delete

Go to 'Setup > Data Output > Patient Status Alerts' and view by availability so you can easily see your local alerts and again these should be reviewed and deactivated or deleted as appropriate. We advise that you leave all the Ardens alerts active.


6.3 Questionnaires - Deactivate & Delete

Go to 'Setup > Data Entry > Questionnaires' and view by availability and review them all and deactivate or delete as appropriate.


6.4 Word Letter Templates

Go to 'Setup > Referrals & Letters > New Word Letter Templates' and view by availability. There is no way to deactivate letters owned by another organisation such as Ardens. You can review your local word templates and once you are sure it isn't needed delete anything that is no longer used.


6.5 URLs

Go to 'Setup > User & Policy >  URL & Program Maintenance' and view by availability. There is no way to deactivate these so just delete any Organisation Specific URLs that are not being used.


6.6 Reports  

Go to 'Reporting > Clinical Reporting' .  This is quite a difficult area to tidy up. One easy way to identify old reports is to click on the 'Local Reports folder on the left and on the right of the screen click on the column header for 'Last Run'. Any with really old dates are a good indication that they haven't been used since then and should be deleted. You can only delete local reports.

   A red exclamation mark indicates a report is linked to a patient status alert

The blue arrows indicate a report is linked to a protocol

 This symbol indicates that a report is setup as a batch report



6.7 Workflow Items  

There are occasions when a high number of unactioned workflow items can affect the performance of SystmOne and you may occasionally see a warning when you first log in prompting staff to do something about it. These can include:

  • Tasks
  • Notifications
  • Scanned documents
  • pathology results
  • Dispensing jobs

All staff should be encouraged to complete these workflow items in a timely manner and therefore reducing the workload of SystmOne in general but specifically on patient record retrieving.


updated 12/02/2019