rescuer Archives

Attached and Detatched

Posted on February 23, 2017

I received another good question from a user. Her question was about attached records, detached records and how to reattach records. This feature is not a very obvious feature and it kinda lurks in the background. I thought this was a good opportunity to explain this topic to everyone.

Attached Records

What does it mean when records are attached? You may have run across this, if you have access and are in the “Rescuer” tab. (Not everybody has access to the “Rescuer” tab. It is a security precaution feature.) This happens when you create a new record with multiple patients.

Example – Bob Smith brings in 10 mallard ducklings, and you use choose 10 on the “Number of Patients”.

Those 10 records will all be attached to one another under Bob Smith’s name and admit information. If you change his name or information in any one of those records, they will all change. After the admission process the only time the attachment is really relevant is within the “People” tab.

Detach Records

When you detach a record, it basically just detaches that rescuer from the record and allows you to edit the admit information without changing the other attached records. The fact that you detached one really doesn’t make a difference to the patient’s record, just to the Rescuer’s list of patients they have brought in.

Example – Bob Smith actually only brought 9 mallards in, you counted wrong. You can go to any of those records and within the “Rescuer” tab you can Detach one (usually the last one created is wise) of those records so that you can either delete it (if it was the last record created) or you can rewrite over it with new information. If you rewrote over it with new information without detaching it, all 10 of the mallards admit information would change as well, so detaching a record in this case would be critical.

Reattaching Records

There are times when you detach a record by mistake or Bob Smith comes back in with 2 more mallards a few hours later and you want to make sure all the mallards are attached.

Example 1 – Actually, Bob Smith did bring in 10 mallard ducklings and you have already detached the last record, but you have not changed anything about it yet. The only way to reattach this record is in the “People” tab. What you have to do is “Combine People” and find the 2 Bob Smiths that have the same information but are not known as being the same person. If you combine them, then that mallard will be reattached to Bob Smith and therefore to the other 9 Ducklings.

Example 2 – Though Bob Smith is really nice his records are beginning to give you a head ache. Two hours after Bob Smith leaves, he is back with 2 more mallard ducklings. There have been a few admit’s since he left. What you can do now, is go to any one of those mallard’s record. Go to “Share” and “Duplicate Record”. It will give you the choice on how many to duplicate, you would choose 2. All the information will be the same. Next you create the 2 new records. Now all 12 records are attached to one another and linked by Bob Smith’s information.

Important New Updates for 2015

Posted on January 4, 2015

Happy New Year! Every new year we make a few updates and changes. This year we are only making a few updates. This is because we are working on a newer version of WRMD that will incorporate many of our users’ fabulous ideas. We are not sure when it will be ready, but Fall 2015 we will start to introduce it and open it up for discussion. I have had a few glimpses of it and it is really nice. Best of all it will be easily accessible on your mobile devices. Yeah!

Updates

The reasons for the following updates are due to our attempt to make field meanings, more clear. We have noticed that our users will use different fields for the same purposes. This doesn’t really help if we want to compare and analyze data. It is also our attempt at streamlining the system to be more effective in using standardized terminology.

Notes — Notes about rescuer

On the “New Record” screen in the “Rescuer Contact Information” box there was a field for “Notes”. This field was intended to be used only for information about the rescuer, such as “Watch out crazy person” or “They want to be part of the release”… We have changed the name to “Notes about rescuer”

Rescuer’s observation — Reasons for admission

This is the big one. It is also on the “New Record” screen, but in the “Intake” box. This is big not because of the name change but because of the decision on the use of the field. This field is to be used as what were the reasons for the animal being captured and brought in. This is where your cat caught, hit window, shot, electrocuted, orphaned, etc. need to go. The rescuer’s observervations can also go here as well, but most importantly we want the “Reason for admission” to go in this field. This field is the wildlife rehabilitators best weapon for policy changes, please fill it out.

What fed by rescuer — Care given by rescuer

In the “Intake” box there was a field for “What fed by rescuer”. We realized that that was unclear. What information should go here, is all care that the finder administered to the animal. This would include fluids and medical care, not just food. So, we changed the phrase to “Care given by rescuer” in the hopes that it would be more clear.

Generic Intake Notes

We will at some point delete this field, it is well… too generic. Any data in this field will not be lost, but hopefully moved to another appropriate field. It would be best to stop using it completely, but since some people do we didn’t want to get rid of it right away.

Discoveries

Nature of Injury

On the federal report there is a section called “Nature of Injury” In our discussions with, well everybody, we don’t really know what its intended purpose is. Is this where you put “Fx L femur”??? or is it cat caught??? So, we decided to ask the feds themselves. This is the email we got back.

“That’s a great question. I took a look at the annual report form, and in some places it asks for “Cause/Nature of Injury.” I would interpret the areas that ask for “cause” as asking for what created the injury (cat, hit by car, shot, electrocuted, etc.) and I would interpret the areas asking for the “nature of injury” as asking for the type of injury (broken wing, damaged feathers, emaciated, etc.). It probably would have been easier to understand if we had included two separate columns, one for the cause of the injury, and another for the type of injury.”

Alright, so what we are going to do is use the “Reason for admission” as the cause and the “Nature of Injury” is the clinical signs. Basically, it is the initial exam. At some point we can get completely on the same page as the feds, but for now at least we rehabbers can all be on the same page.

Keywords

Lastly I would like to talk about “Keywords”. I think that this is the forgotten field. This field is intended to be used when you want to add on particular information about that animal that can later be searched. For example you could put the true reasons for admission here that might differ from what was written down on the “New Record” screen. It could be used to identify a common disease that the animal has such as trich, mycoplasma, distemper or rabies. It could be used for anything that helps you distinguish a particular individual.

As always, if you have any questions or comments, we are all ears!!! [email protected].