2019

December 6

• You can now view changes, over time, of custom service field values for each patient.  Please click here for additional information.
• Service list filtering was not working if a user navigated to a second page of results.  This has been fixed.
• A couple of patient filtering bugs were introduced and resolved within this release timeline.  They were specific to the Patients and Reimbursements pages.
• Our EVV functionality was refined to allow users to click on the message that notes the checked-in time, which will result in the service's start time to be set to that time.  The same is true of the checked-out and end times.
• A column was added to the reimbursements grids, allowing users to open the service, in full view, in another tab.
• Service custom field values were added to the detail view on the reimbursements grids.

November 27

• You can now add multiple caregivers to a patient's profile.  Additionally, these caregivers (and the patients themselves) have a portal to access basic schedule information.  Please click here for additional information.
• The user feedback surrounding uploading files to a patient profile has been updated to be more clear.  Previously, uploads may have appeared to be completed when they weren't.
• Changes were made to the bulk export options on the Settings & Exports page to better handle large datasets.
• An update was made to fix a bug related to deleting patients.

November 5

• Much of this coding period has been used for code cleanup and stabilization.  We have been working on simplifying our code base so that we will be ready to add more features in the coming months.  In addition, we have been checking in on the production logs and working to address any errors or warnings that were found.  This practice will continue moving forward.
• There were a few bugs lingering in the chat and chat group creation pages that were resolved.

October 18

• Users will now see a "File Name" textbox when editing a form.  This can be used to change the name of the file directly from the form, without needing to navigate to the patient's profile to edit the default name, and should save some steps for users who are regularly needing to rename files.

• Services that are related to service groups have seen some changes to the activity status layout.  The statuses have been moved from being isolated at the top of the main column, to being integrated alongside the respective activities.  Statuses will still be displayed and can still be updated from the service group as well as an individual service, but the new layout should make the workflow more clear.  For more information on service groups, take a look at this article.
• The patient search logic has also been tweaked to focus more on the patient name, which we found to be the 95%+ use case.

October 7

• Basic level service validation has been added.  If a service is saved with a future "billing" date (start or end), or one that is more than 30 days ago, the user will receive a message indicating the possible issue and asking them to confirm that they would like to save.  This has been added to help with typos and "lost" services.
• When a server-call fails, the system will now perform a network connectivity test to inform the user if they are no longer connected to the internet.  This is a check that will only be run if a server-call fails and it will not detect slow networks, but should help inform users if they have slipped offline.
• The patient view has been changed from the original two column view to a single column, full screen view (similar to the changes made to the Service UI earlier this year).  This change also resulted in a temporary loss of functionality with the patient search bar, which was also resolved.
• A second option was added to the "Format for Printing" action on a patient's service history in order to allow users to be able to print the services in the reverse chronological order (oldest to latest).
• A bug was fixed where selecting activities from a service group in order to make a new service wasn't working.
• Old user license expirations were migrated into the user certifications, to be consistent with the latest HEF model.
• The patient name has been added to the Dashboard > Recent Transactions service descriptions in order to make those links more helpful.
• As part of on-going code cleanup and performance reviews, updates were made to the patient list and profile pages in order to improve their load times.

September 24

• Multi-location support was added to HealtheFirst.  For those that have a single-location, no changes will be required.  For those that have multiple locations, or require multiple locations for billing, however, will now have the ability to setup those locations in our system.  You will see a new "Locations" option in the navigation menu, where each location can be added.  Then, you can assign a location to each patient.  The patient's location information will then be used in the EDI billing export.  Please reach out to our team via a new ticket if you have any questions or need additional information.
• The "Enable Next-Gen Service UI" option was officially removed, meaning that all users will be using the this layout.  Thank you all for your feedback and assistance in rolling this out!
• A minor tweak was made to the look and feel of the "back" button on full screen detail views.
• The dashboard was updated to better tailor the displayed patients, notifications, and services to the specific user that's logged in.
• The service view was updated to include a glimpse into the relevant service group, where applicable.  This means that a service group pop-up is no longer required, resulting in a cleaner, improved experience.
• The "Address Details" input has been added back into the patient profile.

September 6

• Based on the reminders and notifications on the Dashboard page, this has been made the default page that users are brought to after login, which will also provide a daily/weekly overview.  Users will still be free to move to the Service List or Service Calendar after being taken to this screen and can use either of those as the page they work off of for the rest of the day.
• We have updated the service custom fields to be able to connect to specific fields in the edi reimbursement export.  You can find out more here.
• A "reminder" type has been added to the patient custom field options.  This field will allow you to input a date and a notification will be visible on the Dashboard page when that date arises.  
• An issue with being unable to delete attached files has been resolved.

August 31

• The ability to add custom fields to services was added.  As of now, you can create a custom field (similar to what you can do for patients) and have it appear on all services.  Everything that's been implemented is ready to go however, over the next two weeks, we will be working to further refine the feature by adding a dropdown list option, allowing the value of the custom field to influence billing exports, and allowing you to connect specific custom fields with specific billing rates.
• The new service UI was enabled for all users.  The old UI can still be accessed, but will be fully deprecated by the end of September.  For more information on the new layout, click here.
• The care manager filter was added to the new list layout.
• The billing rate pages were updated to be "full screen."
• There were a few issues with forms saving and generating PDFs due to some third-party library updates.  These issues were all resolved.
• A bug was fixed so that both the "Discard" and "Save" workflows worked properly when creating a new service while already having a service open.
• A quick fix was applied to restore the functionality of the "Create New User" button.
• The "go back" functionality that was built into the new service UI was separated from the Save button.
• A series of minor updates were made based on the warnings we saw in the logs, which should make the system more efficient.

August 16

• Updated service plans to allow for activities from Step X to be accessible from Step Y.  This will, for example, allow a form to be completed over two services/visits.
• Added a new permission that allows users to be able to edit services that have already been billed.
• Re-configured the filters on the Reimbursements page so that they are collapsible, and added a filter for patient statuses.
• Added the ability to duplicate user roles with a single click.
• Fixed the search functionality on the User page.
• Fixed a bug relating to how deleting a patient status would affect assigned patients.
• Added a missing field to the MDS-HC form.
• Added a confirmation prompt to the service deletion workflow.

August 2

• We are proud to announce the addition of service plans to the HealtheFirst featureset.  These plans can be used as templates to create and assign multiple services at once, with due dates.  Click here for more information.
• Patient properties were updated to include an "autofill off" indication.  This should help prevent browsers from attempting to autofill forms with information, which can be troublesome as that information would typically include out of date information or data from another client.
• Additional backend logging has been added to our custom field saving process.  

July 26

• Identified and fixed a bug with pdf creation.  The bug was present for a short time at the end of the week.
• Symbols were added to Service buttons for better usability on small screens (ie smartphones).

July 18

• We have added a new feature to the Dashboard page, where notifications, alerts, and other important messages will be displayed at the top of the page.  This was done as part of our plan to make the Dashboard the ultimate "working overview" page, and the page that users will be brought to after logging in.  Currently, we are displaying notifications for the following scenarios:
  • Patients who have less than 20% of their approved units remaining.
  • Patients who have expired units, or units that are expiring within the next 30 days.
  • Your own certifications that are expiring within the next 30 days (more on this below).
• User certifications and licenses can now be tracked in the system.  When viewing a user's profile, you will now see a "Certifications" section that will allow you to upload a certificate, set a name and expiration date.  This feature should help administrators keep track of their staff's qualifications and act as yet another addition to our workforce management featureset.
• The "new" UI for services was optimized for laptops and tablets, but didn't previously support the small screen size of a smartphone.  This has been changed, and we have optimized the view for all screen sizes.
• For billing purposes, R69 (illness, unspecified) will be used as the default ICD10 diagnosis, as this is consistent with what Utah and other states are doing for manual entries.
• Some cleanup work was done to ensure that deleted patients are not appearing in any patient lists.

July 12

• Activity durations are now being tracked and a module has been added to the Dashboard for administrators to monitor the expected durations vs the calculated durations.
• The user view has been updated to display in full width.  This new layout sets was a prereqisite for us to begin adding additional features to users' availability and certification tracking.
• The Person-Centered Care Plan form was updated to provide users more room to type in certain fields.
• A bug was found and fixed where, if there was a service and the assigned billing rate was later deleted, you would no longer be able to open the service.
• An update was made to better support all forms of non-patient services.
• A bug was introduced and fixed where deleted services were displaying on the Reimbursements page.  This was present for less than one day.
• The Patient > Custom Fields page was updated to be able to handle a longer list of fields.

June 28

• Administrators can now assign specific billing rates to be available for patients with a specific status.
• Custom patient profile fields can now be sorted with the "permanent" patient profile fields, so they no longer need to be just listed at the bottom of the profile.  You can make these changes from the custom fields page (Patients [dropdown] > Custom Fields).
• A setting has been added to change the rate tracking from "units" to "time."  Note: If enabled, this will only affect billing rates that have a "minutes per unit" set.
• Increased the visibility of the EVV "Check-in" button by using a pop-up to make sure users check-in before starting their service.
• "Care Managers," in most places, has been changed to "Users" as this is a more representative label.
• A bug was resolved that had been causing issues for creating new users with certain properties set.
• Another bug was resolved that was causing confusing behavior for users when creating new user roles.
• Updated the logic to better display patient names that contain special characters.

June 21

• A dashboard page has been added to the system.  The page is designed to display basic information to help provides users with an overview of the system.  This is an area that we will be working to enhance over the coming weeks and months, including the addition of notifications, warnings, and important data points for both users and admins.
• We have updated the "supervisor" functionality to also give users the ability to view patients connected to users that they are supervising.
• A bug was quickly addressed where new services were not able to be created in the mobile format.

June 14

• In our first step towards adding Electronic visit verification (EVV) into our system, we have added a location and time tracking option into our new service interface.  Click here to learn more.
• A setting was added that will hide services that are part of a service group/template from the Service List view (Settings & Exports > Service List: Only Show Services In Service Groups).
• A "help" button was added to the navigation menu, directing users to our knowledgebase.  As we expand our library, we hope that this will allow users to become more self-sufficient and feel more comfortable within the system.
• The Billing Rate editor was updated to allow administrators to input the "minutes per unit" for rates that have start/end inputs and for those that have date/units.  This will allow future features to be added to the system that can help calculate estimated service and activity durations for better workforce management and planning.

June 7

• Added a new setting to show/hide the scheduling section of a service.
• Pre-release of Next-Gen service layout (preview below).  Click here to learn more.
• A bug was discovered and fixed related to the services that were being displayed on the user history page.  Services were being displayed if their completion date or due date was within the filtered time period.  This has been corrected so only services that were completed within the time period are displayed.
• Added the patient diagnosis to the list of fields that are verified and required for edi exports from the reimbursement page, as this information is necessary to create a valid edi file.