Patient

Patient.. 1

Patient Files. 1

Select Patient 1

Directory Lock. 2

Patient Information. 3

Patient Number 3

Patient Address. 3

Patient Phone Number 3

All the patients are stored under a directory (folder) called the patient directory. The patient directory holds sub-directories, each one for a separate patient. The patient directory where all the patient’s directories are located is specified in the file PatientDirectory.loc in the program resource directory. The program resource directory is defined in the file “rlresources.dir.loc” in the home directory.

Each patient entry is also a directory, located in the patient directory, with the patient’s directory name made out of the patient’s name. Changing the patient’s name will change the directory entry for the patient. You can only select one patient per run of the program.

Select Patient

The patient is selected with the X/Motif file selection box shown below. The Filter text box at the top of the file selection box shows the path to the current directory (folder) whose contents (directories only) are shown below on the left side of the file selection box. Normally one would navigate either with the Filter text box by typing in a path, or by selections on the left. However, the only navigation one should do is to some other directory that also holds patient files for this system.

If there is some other folder where patient entries are also stored, you can type in the path to the other location in the Filter box. For example type:

g:\PatientDirectory\*

and hit the Enter key if patients are also stored there. While Unix/Linux has a directory tree starting at ‘/’, Windows has parallel trees starting with a letter and colon, such as c:, g:, etc.. In the file selection box in Windows you cannot navigate to another tree from the Patient Directory. Selecting “..” will take you up a directory but not beyond the root. Selecting a directory will take you down into that directory. You have to type in the new tree in the Filter box starting with the letter and colon, and then either type in the complete path or navigate from there.

You select the patient’s directory (folder) on the right side under “Select Patient”. If you were to select on the left and hit “OK”, the path up to the directory is returned, not the path including the patient’s directory, and the program will probably complain about not finding the files it expects to find. The patient entry is a directory, not a file, which might become a source of confusion because you will see the same entries on both sides of the file selection box.

Directory Lock

When the program accesses a patient directory, a lock is placed on that directory which prevents the program running in a different window or on a different system from accessing the same patient. The lock is accomplished by simply creating a file call rlLockFile in the patient’s directory. When the program terminates normally, the lock file is removed. Should there be an abnormal termination of the program, you will have to remove the lock file from the directory before the program can access that directory again. The lock file records the user, process ID, and date and time the directory is locked.

Patient Information

Information specific to the patient may be stored under the Patient pull down on the main tool bar under Edit. Edit will push the patient information tool bar onto the tool bar stack. All of the information forms described below include a note area.

The Edit Patient Toolbar

Patient Number

The patient’s social security number, department number, and hospital number may be stored under the Number push button. For security reasons, only the department number and hospital number will be shown on the header of printouts produced by the program. If the numbers are not entered, than they won’t appear on printouts.