MWSTR Orphans - due to PowerTools usage?

Technical problems with Medisoft.
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Paul Williams
Posts: 40
Joined: Fri Aug 03, 2007 10:34 am

MWSTR Orphans - due to PowerTools usage?

Post by Paul Williams » Thu May 01, 2008 1:44 pm

I was checking the integrity of some of our Medisoft tables and ran the following query in ARC32:

Select *
From MWSTR as A
Where A.\"chart number\" NOT IN
(Select B.\"chart number\"
From MWPAT as B
Where A.\"chart number\" = B.\"chart number\")

It turned up 115 MWSTR rows (records) whose Chart Number have no match in MWPAT.
I ran similar queries against the other tables that reference the 'Chart Number' key and found no orphans.

We have been using PowerTools for some time to correct the occasional mistyped Chart Number. My best guess is that perhaps PowerTools neglects to update this one table? Has anyone else used PowerTools quite a bit and also has orphaned MWSTR records? How critical are entries in the MWSTR table?

Thank you sincerely.
Paul Williams

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Gavin Walker
Posts: 4625
Joined: Wed Apr 04, 2007 10:11 pm
Location: Springfield, MO
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Post by Gavin Walker » Sun May 04, 2008 6:11 pm

Hi Paul, I tested Powertools v14 and it is not leaving orphans in MWSTR. Could it have possibly have been left by the delete patient process?

MWSTR is the record of superbills that have been printed. If this table is incorect it could throw off your Superbill Tracking Report.
Gavin Walker
Walker Tek Solutions, LLC
417-890-6777 x0
fax: 417-763-6386

Paul Williams
Posts: 40
Joined: Fri Aug 03, 2007 10:34 am

You Sir, are entirely correct.

Post by Paul Williams » Mon May 05, 2008 9:30 am

We've had Powertools crash a few times, leaving pateints \"half-moved\". This seems to occur when you \"go shopping\" for a new chart number. After being told a couple times that the destination chart number is already in use, your third or fouth choice will take off and 30-something percent into the process Powertools will lock up (I forget the exact error message) and leave records scrambled. Having had to clean up a few of those messes, we now make sure we know the new chart number we want is available before typing it into Powertools. That glitch, along with inconveniences such as having to manually scroll through 3000 chart numbers to get to the one you wish to change, had me feeling that Powertools was somewhat of a thrown-together utility. and that it was likely the source of the MWSTR orphans.

Per your comment, I just deleted a test patient we've had on our system for years, one who had a row in the MWSTR table. And sure enough, after deleting the patient, the matching record remained in MWSTR. I would guess since there are no longer other records to provide any detail for the printed statement, that there is no reason to maintain a record of when it printed? Sloppy housekeeping in the main MAPA program? I suppose I could just delete the 115 (now 116) orphan records?

I thank you very much for nailing this one down, Gavin.

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