Ol Monitor Blog

February 14, 2007
How do you exclude a worksheet? For example, we want to exclude microbiology worksheets.

Some people make a group worksheet just for the ol monitor. Another way is, at the top of the log the department is usually listed. If you click on the filters tab in options, you will see an option for departmental filters. If you enable this you can list there only those departments you want to see.

March 22, 2007
I am so excited! I got the OL Monitor Trial to work today after I downloaded the trial again today. Actually, it “saved the day” a couple of times on ER stats!!
Question: Is there a way to change the background color for a test that is over the turnaround time. Explanation: I left the general background blue with the font white. Then I had it set to turn the tests red when the TAT is exceeded. I find the red difficult to read with the blue background. Now, I have the general background set to white and the font black. I left the test red when the TAT is exceeded. I think this is better, but I was just wondering if there is a way to control the background for tests failing the TAT independently from the general background color.
Also, I showed the OL Monitor Trial to our Lab Manager. She is very excited also. Ideally, we would like to have the trial loaded onto three PC’s at the same time for a short period of time (a week would probably be long enough for us to be ready to make a purchase decision). Is this possible?
Thanks for your help. It is rare when we have a day that is as exciting as this one. I believe the OL Monitor would help to keep us “on our toes”.

That’s outstanding! As for the background for individual tat’s unfortunately Microsoft decided row-specific background colors were an unecessary feature when they designed the ‘listview’ control. I’m considering some third-party products that may provide this feature but at the current time you can only change the static background color, and color the text of tests for turn-around-times. You might find that there are a broader array of colors that are visible if you get creative with the main background color. One hospital the other day was using a light purple as the background with white letters. I find a dark army green background with a deep yellow relaxing. Red, orange, and yellow stand out well on these backgrounds much better than they do on white. After you settle on a color you may decide to change it up again if you ever decide to get a large lcd or plasma display. Changing the font size and style can also help visibility.
Anyway yes test away the trial lasts a month and may even let you go longer with a nuisance message up until almost 45 days.

January 04, 2007
OK … I got OL_Monitor installed at one of our hospitals. I need to know IF the following can be done, and if YES … how to set it up:

The staff wants specific order codes: TROP, CKMB, HCG to turn YELLOW @ 30 Minutes; RED @ 45 Minutes
AND, they want ALL OTHER order codes to: turn YELLOW @ 20 Minutes; RED @ 30 Minutes

I had to test this but yes you can have the tests change color in the way that you described. The only thing is that you need to define the TAT’s IN A CERTAIN ORDER, for it to behave they way you want it to. What happens is that when a test matches a TAT, the program stops looking at the other TAT’s down the line, so you should have your most restrictive TAT’s defined first on down to the least restrictive. In your case you should define the 45-minute, trop-ckmb-hcg tat first, then the 30 minute, trop-ckmb-hcg second. THen define the 30 minute-all test tat, and finally the 20 minute-all test tat. Here are a few screenshots of how it should look:

First tat – 45 minutes individual tests:

2nd tat – 30 minutes individual tests:

3rd tat – 30 minutes all tests:

4th tat – 20 minutes all tests:

Hope this helps!

Test