How do I change charting speed buttons?

The Oasis PMS offers graphical charting of existing and proposed treatment.

Whilst it is possible to chart specific items through a menu of all ADA procedures, you can expedite more common or frequently used items through a series of "speed buttons" that are offered as a "toolbar" in the charting screen. Depending on screen mode (and resolution), you may see the toolbar when you open the charting screen, or you may have to select it from the menu in the charting screen. It will display as two panels of 50 buttons (with the last button (100) not used).

There are 99 speed buttons available and your Oasis installation will have come with a standard set of buttons. Clicking the "2" will display the second group of 50 buttons.

These instructions are for altering the characteristics of one of the standard buttons. We are going to target button 37 - the first of the blank buttons on the second row shown above.

Select Preferences, My Work, Charting Speed Buttons.

As you scroll down the list, you will see that 37 is not defined. 

Click New at the top of the form to create a new speed button.

Enter button number 37. We will call the button "Fill" and give it button help of "This is a filling" and an item code 511 (single surface metallic filling). We will leave the Display Chart Icon blank. Click OK to save the new speed button.

Now when we load the charting screen, we have the following:

Now you can see the word "Fill" on button 37 and when you hover over it, you can see "37 - This is a filling" - but there is a picture icon displaying on the button as well. Why?

In the ICONS directory on the server, there are icons with specific names that Oasis uses for charting. They are:

CHARTSxx.ico         The icons that appear on the actual chart

CHTSPDxx.ico         The icons that appear on speed buttons

CHTSYMxx.ico         The icons that appear on the "surface enhancements" tooth graphic.

CNOTESxx.ico         Icons shown against clinical notes

In our case, there is a CHTSPD37.ico in the icons folder, and Oasis draws that icon on the speed button.

If you don't want the icon to appear on the button, you either need to delete it from the icons folder, or rename it to something else (if you want to keep it for some other purpose). The other alternative is to declare a charting icon to display rather than the speed button icon (using field #4 in the Charting Speed Button setup). For our exercise here, we will rename the icon.

Whenever you change icons, you need to re-start Oasis as the icons are loaded at startup.

With the picture re-named, we now have just the word "Fill" on the button.

Now comes the complicated bit. At the moment, the button can be used to add a 511 to a single surface on a tooth, but that is fairly limited. We would really like the button to be able to apply metallic fillings to multiple surfaces on a tooth - but there are five item codes involved - 511, 512, 513, 514 and 515. We really don't want to have 5 speed buttons for this purpose.

To get around this , Oasis uses "pseudo" codes - made up codes that can be used with speed buttons to do various things in the charting system. There is a pseudo code called METALLIC and we are going to change our Fill button (37) to use this pseudo code. At the same time we will look at what the pseudo code does and how it is configured.

Select Preferences, My Work, Charting Toolbox Item Codes and then select the Charting option.

This will open the following screen:

There's a lot to absorb in this screen. There are four main sections (and one of them - Item Codes to Surfaces Selected - does not show unless the "Base Item Code on Surfaces Selected" is ticked in the Toolbox Options section).

The fields at the top left are as follows:

Toolbox Code                                                         The Toolbox Code - in this case the pseudo code METALLIC

Notes Description                                                   The description that will be written to the clinical notes when this code is used. It may be different to the standard description assigned to the individual item codes used.

Notes Picture Number                                            An icon to be used in the clinical notes screen (CNOTESxx.ico).

Extended Treatment Plan Description                    An alternate description to be used in the Treatment Plan window for this item.

Diagnosis Number                                                  A diagnostic worksheet number to be loaded whenever this item code is used.

The Toolbox Options

Suppress reference to tooth number                      When ticked, there will be no tooth number referenced for this item code. For example, an 012 would not have a reference to a tooth number.  

Paint complete region inside tooth                         When ticked, the graphic option selected will cover the entire region of the tooth

Paint graphic region outside tooth                          When ticked, the graphic option selected will be drawn in the area between the tooth graphic and the tooth number

Paint all teeth in the same quadrant                       When ticked, the graphic chosen will be applied to all teeth in the same quadrant

Paint all teeth in the adjacent quadrant                  When ticked, the graphic chosen will be applied to all teeth in the adjacent quadrant. This would be useful if you were setting up a full upper denture if used with the previous option.

Paint all teeth in all quadrants                                When ticked, the graphic chosen will be applied to all teeth (e.g. full upper and lower dentures)

Base item code on surfaces selected                    When ticked, the Item Codes to Surfaces Selected box will appear and this item code is now dependent on the selection of surfaces on the tooth

Explode as group when invoicing                          If the Toolbox Item code carries the same name as an Item Group, then the items in the group will be shown in the invoice screen rather than just the pseudo code.

Add surface details to clinical notes                      In conjunction with the Base Item Code of Surfaces Selected, the surfaces selected when using the code will be added to the clinical notes

Don't add to treatment plan                                   When ticked, this item will not be added to any treatment plan for the patient

Mark tooth as absent                                             When ticked, this item code will mark a tooth as absent

Blank selected surfaces                                        When ticked, this item will blank any surfaces selected (across multiple teeth)

Mark tooth as missing                                           When ticked, will mark a tooth as missing

Use synonym item code                                       When ticked, will force the item to use it's synonym item code 

Don't add to clinical notes                                     When ticked, the item will not be added to clinical notes

Don't add to invoices                                             When ticked, the item will  not be added to the patient's invoice 

Write once only to treatment plan                         When ticked, this item will only be added once to the treatment plan - useful for things like dentures where multiple teeth are nominated but you only want one entry in the treatment plan

Don't explode as group in clinical notes               Where an item code has the same name as a group, it will not be expanded to the individual group items in the clinical notes. It will just appear as the pseudo code

Add to task manager on selection                        When ticked, will add a task to the Task Manager when the item is selected

Add to task manager on completion                     When ticked will add a task to the Task Manager when the item is completed

Create new visit header                                       When ticked, this item will add a new visit header to a treatment plan. Lets you create a visit header from a speed button rather than have to select it from the menu

Unmark tooth as absent                                      When ticked, will toggle an absent tooth back to being present

Group contains visit headers                               When ticked, indicates the group related to this item has visit headers included.

Item Codes to Surfaces Selected

This box allows you to define individual item codes to the number of surfaces selected - both deciduous and permanent teeth.

Selected Surface Painting

This box allows you to define the graphic representation of the item on the tooth. When used in conjunction with the Item Codes to Surfaces Selected box, it will be the graphic effect on individual surfaces.

There are three graphic options you can select:

1. Icon
2. Colour (as defined in Preferences, My Work, Diagnosis Sheets and Clinical Notes section - Colour Schemes)
3. Character  

Where the tilde character (~) is used, a colour will be applied. Where the "at" (@) symbol is used, the number entered will correspond to the CHARTSxx.ico icon. Where a keyboard character is used (e.g. "W"), it will be displayed in whatever colour you nominate in the colour/icon column.

There are four quadrants that you can nominate. This is to allow you to use varying icons that display correctly on upper and lower teeth. 

Now getting back to our Button 37 - Filling.

To use the button, open the Restorative Chart for a patient and select some tooth surfaces.

Now click the speed button "Fill" and the following will happen.

Clicking the button has automatically painted the tooth surfaces with the nominated colour blocks, and in this case added two items into the patient's treatment plan (shown on the right).

Note: The charting system in this example is set in "Plan" mode, meaning all items applied to the Proposed Treatment component of the chart will be added to a treatment plan.