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Updates for 2018

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First off, it is important to understand that very little in the foreground of WRMD has actually changed. Most of the updates are in the background and nothing has been removed.

Every few years WRMD requires an update. Technology changes so quickly and new features become available to us. However, at some point we can’t add new features until we implement an update. Once updated we are able to create new features.

For this update the entire background code has been cleaned up. This will mean that overall, WRMD will be more efficient and easier for us to maintain. This allows us to make changes and create new features more easily.

We have put a lot of effort into improving the user experience. WRMD will be quicker due to the fact that we have added more servers, that are themselves, far more up to date. Many minor quarks and bugs have also been dealt with.

Before we list the new updates we want to thank all of the generous individuals and organizations that have made recent donations to WRMD.  We are committed to keeping WRMD free to use however, it isn’t free to us. Each of these updates takes a lot of time and resources on our part, so we greatly appreciate any financial contributions you are capable of making. Thank you all for sticking with us on this amazing journey!

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What this Update Includes

  1. There is a new extension called “Daily Exams”. This extension is modeled off of the “Initial Exam” page, but it can be used to record exams throughout the patient’s recovery. It will save each exam separately and there is no limit to the number of exams you can record. Like all other extensions, whatever is recorded here will be filtered into the “Treatment Log”.
  2. A New “Transported by Field” will be in the “Intake” box, which is found in the “Create New Patient” screen. This allows contact information to be recorded about the transporter, if it is different then the Rescuer.
  3. On the “Create New Patient” screen, an option has been added at the bottom of the page that can prompt an immediate batch update. For example if you get in 10 ducklings, you can choose to batch update their Age and any other information that may be the same.
  4. All of the date fields have a new Date Picker. We took a long time deciding on this new Date Picker, we hope it works well for you. The best thing about this Date Picker is that you can choose an icon with a circle and checkmark that will record “NOW”. However if there is already a date in that field “NOW” will not work. 
  5. The pagination on the List Records screen is quicker and it doesn’t have to reload each time.
  6. Banding and Morphometrics can be exported in a format that can be imported into Bandit 4.0. Auxiliary band information has been added as well.
  7. In combine people, it will show you a list of all the matches, not just the first 10.
  8. We added in the “Initial Exam” an option for Mucous Membrane Texture as well as Mucous Membrane Color.
  9. The Header info has been re-designed and simplified: Settings, Change Accounts, Sign Out, Support/ Tutorials and Donate to WRMD is now under the Name of the user, on the top right of the screen as seen below.
  10. There are many other small changes that would take too long to list here, so we’ll just sum them up by saying they are all meant to make WRMD simpler and faster for you.

Once this update is completed and successful, we have a few new features we plan to create. Some examples: being able to Batch update and Search Lab Values, Batch update prescriptions, Pre-set some prescription values and the ability to filter prescriptions into the Recheck report. There are many more we have lined up.

Thank you for your patience and support. We know many of these features are long-awaited and we do try to work through these request as fast as we can. If at any point you notice a bug, or something not working quite right please let us know ASAP. While we run 1000’s of tests, we are far from perfect.

Happy New Year!!!

WRMD Unavailable on Dec 25 and 4pm PST

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This is just a reminder that on December 25th at 4pm PST (12:00am UTC) WRMD will be unavailable while receiving an upgrade. We are planing for a two hour downtime but also hoping to make WRMD available again as soon as possible so hopefully the disruption won’t be that bad.

A blog post will follow with the details of the upgrade but to give you a summary of the changes right now; very little will appear to have changed, a few things are being added, we are moving onto new servers and things will get a whole lot faster.

In order to receive these upgrades you don’t have to do anything. 🙂
(Although we do greatly appreciate donations!)

Happy Holidays!

The 2017 New Update is Coming!!!

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This has been a very busy year for WRMD! During the last 12 months we have attended 7 events where WRMD was represented. We got to travel to 5 states and had the pleasure of visiting over a dozen organizations, most using WRMD and some not using WRMD. Never in our wildest dreams did we think our little database project would travel around the globe and be used by nearly 400 organizations in 46 US states and 11 countries!!!

Who do you Love?:

We appreciate all of the support and gratitude we receive from our dedicated wildlife rehabilitation community. It makes us so happy to know that WRMD has made a positive impact on your organizations. If anybody would like to add to our testimonials page we would happily post it during the new year. Just email me at [email protected] (Yes, I finally have an easy email address). If you email me a testimonial by Feb 1, 2018, you will be entered in a raffle to win a free Med, Large or X-Large WRMD teeshirt, or a Sergio Lub Wild Neighbors bracelet.

Annual Report Reminder:

This is the time of year most organizations are beginning to think about state and or federal reports. Please let us know if there is something not right with your report so we can fix it ASAP, and hopefully not at the last minute.

IMPORTANT: If your species are not coming up correctly on your reports, it is likely because you have species whose common names have been entered incorrectly, which categorizes them as “unidentified”. If you do a full search and export your patients class, order and family, you will be able to see all patients in your database that are unidentified.

2017 Update Release on Dec 25 (SERVER WILL BE DOWN):

We have been working all year on a very big update. This update has most of the additional suggestions and features that we have accumulated over the year. With this update we are also updating our servers, which should help in WRMD’s  overall speed and performance. After this update is released PLEASE feel free to contact us if something is not working as it should. With all updates not everything will be 100% perfect, but we have made sure that all reporting is as perfect as we can get it.

****IMPORTANT:  On December 25th WRMD will be down all day! Please plan to have no access to WRMD this day. Hopefully, you can take a much needed day off from data entry. On Dec 26th there will be a new and improved WRMD to use. ****

In the next Blog post we will outline all of the updates and new features we’ve  added to WRMD.

Thank you and have a good holiday season!!!

February WRMD Update

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We have made it through the first month of the WRMD 3.0 update! What a month it was. Thank you everybody for your patience and we are sorry for any and all inconvenience the transition has caused. I know that reporting time is neigh upon us and we are the cause of some lateness due to trying to make sure everything matches up correctly.

Unidentified Species and Reporting

A few things to keep in mind while reporting is that in several cases the species are unidentified. It is critical that you choose from the drop down list provided. If you can not find the species you are looking for contact us, chances are it has an alternative name which can be found in wikipedia pretty easily. For example some was looking for Groundhog which was not in the database, being Groundhog’s day… I looked it up in wikipedia and saw that they are also known as a Woodchuck which was in the database. So, woodchuck could have been used instead. However, we are able to add the common name Groundhog to the species, so now you can use Woodchuck or Groundhog and both are the same. We will create a way in settings to look up your unidentified species, but as for now you can see that a species is unidentified by exporting everything from a list into excel. If you see a species_id number as 999999 it is an unidentified animal.

See the ExampleScreen Shot 2016-02-02 at 10.52.09 AM

Customization and Reporting

Every state has their own requirement and we work hard to make sure that at the least you are able to record the necessary information required for your reports. Some states like New York have many custom settings to record information that is required by the state. So, sometimes we have to work out some of the bugs that come along with customization before everything works smoothly.

Custom Fields

The same thing goes for Custom Fields.Screen Shot 2016-02-02 at 11.07.52 AM As many have now noticed you can only have 10 custom fields, anything beyond that will not allow for data to be recorded. We have worked with a few organizations to try and dwindle down their custom fields to a manageable level. Still, custom fields are a little more finicky because they have to format themselves in to everything else which is pre-formatted by WRMD and sometimes bugs occur. If you are in need of more custom fields, then please contact us so that we can help either dwindle down what you have or we will be able to do custom extensions for a charge. This will not launch until we are sure we have all the kinks worked out in WRMD 3.0. (Note: Custom fields in image are Sector and Aid Station)

WRMD Adding Back its Lost Features

It was really important to WRMD that we get the Heart of WRMD 3.0 working smoothly. In order to do this we did not move over all of the features that WRMD 2.0 had, such as WRMD Import and Necropsy among many other features. As, WRMD 3.0 is getting debugged and our customer service is slowing down, we can now focus on getting more of the WRMD 2.0 features into WRMD 3.0.

Necropsy

As of today the Necropsy extension will be available again. Thanks to some help from out users, it is beefed up substantially. Keep in mind this is designed for veterinarians, but can be used by any skilled Prosector.

Screen Shot 2016-02-02 at 11.12.55 AM          Screen Shot 2016-02-02 at 11.13.05 AM

Analytics

This month we will work on getting Analytics back on board as well. So, if you have a analytic that you would like to see in the analytics section that would be useful to all wildlife rehabilitators let us know and we will consider adding it in. Email us at [email protected] for suggestions.

Donations

Thanks to all that made donations in 2015!!!! If you have made donations in the year 2015 and need a donation receipt from us, please send me an email to the above email address with your name and address so I can send those out to you ASAP.

WRMD 3.0 Upgrade Schedule

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Red_Coming_Soon_StampDear Wildlife Rehabilitation MD User,

On December 31st at 10:00pm Pacific Standard Time (6:00am UTC) we will begin upgrading WRMD to version 3.0. At that time WRMD will not be available until we are done with the upgrade. For the past month we’ve been rehearsing the upgrade process so we expect it to go smoothly and if all goes well, it should take less than two hours to complete.

This upgrade process requires that we transfer all of your data into the updated database. This includes all your settings as well. We’ve done our best to make sure that all your settings work in WRMD 3.0 but if you think something isn’t behaving the way you think it should, please let us know. Our top priority during this upgrade is to make sure that the transition is smooth and that you can still use the database the way you always have. If you encounter any errors or issues please let us know as soon as possible! You can still message us from within WRMD by clicking Ask for Help or email us at [email protected]. We will be available to fix issues that arise at a moments notice during the first week of the new year. We do not expect any issues, but we are prepared to handle them if they come up.

As a Reminder,
Here is a List of All the Important Changes You Will See In WRMD 3.0

  1. Dashboard Upgrade:
    • We have updated the first page you see after you sign-in. It was designed to help navigate the database more efficiently.
  2. Add New Record:
    • One this page we have updated the species database behind the scenes and it is much smarter and faster. We also naow have the ability to have multiple common names for a species. An example would be “mule deer” and “black-tailed deer” can both be used even though they are the same species. There will also be the additions of a few unknown species such as “myotis, sp” or “warbler, sp” for those  critters that are difficult to identify.Screen Shot 2015-12-28 at 9.12.24 PM
    • We also have a new panel for donations, if you had a custom field for donations that data will be moved to the new fields.
  3. Navigating the Screens:
    • When you first go to a record you will notice that the screen looks different.
      • The tabs (Rescuer, Initial Care, Continued Care and the Extensions) are now under the new “Cage Card” and “Location” panels.
      • The “Cage Card” panel now has all the identity information about that patient such as case #, species, band, name, reference number and date admitted.
      • The “Location” panel has the information about where that animal is. For more information on the new locations feature see our Locations Blog post.
  4. Initial Care:
    • You will notice that the initial exam area has been changed to be more informative.
    • Ages have changed as well and are categorized by bird, mammal, reptile/amphibian. We have spent years coming up with the new ages, for more information on ages see our Ages Blog post.
  5. Rechecks:
    • We have put a lot of time and thought into the new recheck system. It is much more user friendly and useful. For more information on rechecks see our Rechecks Blog post.
  6. Screen Shot 2015-12-28 at 8.54.39 PMShare:
    • One of the new permanent tabs in the records is a “Share” tab. This tab is used anytime you want to “share” a record.
    • Within the share tab there is the ability to “Transfer Records” to any other WRMD account. For more information on transferring records see our Transferring Records Blog post.
    • The paper forms are now found in the share tab as well.

There are many other little additions here and there which you will probably find at one time or another. All of these new features where created from the ideas of our users, so thank you for all your help in helping create WRMD 3.0. We are quite pleased with how it turned out and I hope you enjoy it.

Not Yet Working

Because of the nature of what we are doing, we are not quite finished with a few of the features. Our plan is to have everything up and running as soon as possible, but we want to make sure everything has transitioned smoothly before we finish the last little bit. So, below are the features that are not quite available yet. Remember, just because they are not available does not mean that your data has vanished, it is just in long term parking for the moment.

  1. Necropsy extension
  2. Husbandry extension
  3. WRMD import
  4. Case summary extension
  5. Batch update
  6. Analytics

Happy New Year!!!

Important New Updates for 2015

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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 rescuerScreen Shot 2015-01-04 at 8.13.30 PM

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.

Screen Shot 2015-01-04 at 8.13.59 PMWhat 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.

Screen Shot 2015-01-04 at 8.49.40 PM

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].