Month: November 2013

Here are the locations of some useful Oscar files (for v12.1):

Language specific files:

/var/lib/tomcat6/webapps/Oscar12_1/WEB-INF/classes/oscarResources_en.properties

Many lower cost Internet providers do not provide a static IP address to their clients. That means that you cannot connect remotely without knowing your current IP address. You must either contact someone at the office and ask them for the current IP, or you can install a Dynamic DNS Client. The Dynamic DNS client will allow you to use a domain name like myclinic.dns2go.com and will automatically convert it to your current IP address.

Some companies like dyndns.com or no-ip offer a limited free version which is adequate. I currently use both dyndns and DNS2GO.

There are three (3) places where you can install the Dynamic DNS client. 1) On any single PC 2) In some routers or 3) In the Oscar server.

To use the DNS2Go client with your Oscar server, you have to download the Linux/Debian client into the server (I used /usr/local/bin ) and add a single line to /etc/rc.local.
The line would be something like su -c “/usr/local/bin/dns2go” .
On Oscar 9.06 installations, I added the line at the end of the file (after the python drugref service startup).

Adding email appointment reminders to Oscar is easy.

Our current implementation uses a Report by Template (on the Admin, oscarReport menu) that exports patient names and email addresses from the Appointment file. The data is used in an OpenOffice/LibreOffice Mail-merge that sends out the reminders. The following notes describe the process in detail.

The Report Template is:

<report title=”Appointment Reminder Email List” description=”List of Emails for Appointment Reminders” active=”1″>
<query>select dem.email as Email,
DATE_FORMAT(app.appointment_date,’%d/%m/%Y’) as Date, TIME_FORMAT(app.start_time,’%h:%i %p’) as Time, prov.last_name as Doctor,
dem.last_name as Lastname, dem.first_name as Firstname
from appointment app, demographic dem, provider prov
where LOCATE(‘@’, dem.email ) > 2
and appointment_date >= ‘{start}’ and appointment_date <= ‘{finish}’
and app.demographic_no = dem.demographic_no
and app.provider_no = prov.provider_no
order by app.appointment_date, app.provider_no, app.start_time ;
</query>
<param id=”start” type=”date” description=”Start date”> </param>
<param id=”finish” type=”date” description=”Finish date”> </param>
</report>

You can run the query for the following week and save the CSV file to your local PC. The first time you run the mail merge, you will have to setup the CSV as a LibreOffice/OpenOffice database and configure your email account (see below).

The next step is to write your message template and use that as a Mail-merge to Email.
Sample email template:

This is a system generated e-mail reminder.
<<last_name>> <<first_name>> has an appointment with Dr. <<Doctor>> on <<Date>> at <<Time>>.

Should there be a need to reschedule or cancel your appointment, please note we require 24hr notification at (514) 555-1212.
Please note there is a $40 charge for missed appointments.

Ceci est un rappel automatisé par courriel.
<<last_name>> <<first_name>> a un rendez-vous avec Dr. <<Doctor>> le <<Date>> à <<Time>>.

Veuillez nous aviser de tout changement ou cancellation au plus tard 24 heures avant l'heure prévue du rendez-vous au (514)555-1234.
Des frais de $40 seront perçus pour tous les rendez-vous manqués.

This e-mail may be privileged and/or confidential, and the sender does not waive any related rights and obligations. 
Any distribution, use or copying of this e-mail or the information it contains by other than an intended recipient is unauthorized.
 If you received this e-mail in error, please advise us (by return e-mail or otherwise) immediately.
 
Ce courrier électronique est confidentiel et protégé. L'expéditeur ne renonce pas aux droits et obligations qui s'y rapportent.
 Toute diffusion, utilisation ou copie de ce message ou des renseignements qu'il contient par une personne autre que le (les) destinataire(s) désigné(s) est interdite.
 Si vous recevez ce courrier électronique par erreur, veuillez nous en aviser immédiatement, par retour de courrier électronique ou par un autre moyen.

If you enter a consultation request without an appointment date and specify that the patient will book their own appointment, the consultation request will not be viewable. This is because the page that displays the consultation requests expects a valid appointment date and time.
The current back-end solution is to plug in a dummy appointment date and time:
update consultationRequests set appointmentDate = ‘1900-01-01′, appointmentTime = ’01:01:01’ where patientWillBook = 1 and appointmentDate is NULL ;

When installing an Oscar v12 demo on my windows laptop, I encountered Java memory problems. I added the following lines to the Tomcat parameters (in Java, Java Options) :
-XX:+CMSClassUnloadingEnabled
-XX:+CMSPermGenSweepingEnabled
-XX:+UseConcMarkSweepGC
-XX:PermSize=128m
-XX:MaxPermSize=512m

The backup procedure written by Peter Hutton-Czapski works nicely. I’ve added a few lines to sync the backup with a removable USB drive that can be taken home.

The files on the USB drive are encrypted and compressed, so if lost, they are not readable.

To list devices and find out where the USB drive is located:
sudo fdisk -l
should see /dev/sdc1

Create a mount point
sudo mkdir /media/usb_external
Mount the drive
sudo mount -t ntfs-3g /dev/sdc1 /media/usb_external -o force
Edit the backup script.
/usr/local/backups/backup.sh

Add the following lines to the end of the backup script
cp /usr/local/backups/data/2012-06* /media/usb_external/backup/
sudo rsync –delete -dptgoD -e ssh /usr/local/backups/data/ /media/usb_external/backup

if backup files are in /home/mysql
sudo rsync –delete -dptgoD -e ssh /home/mysql/ /media/usb_external/backup
sudo umount /media/usb_external

Some clients have a LOT of scanned documents in Oscar. If a complete set of 30 backups is too large for the existing system, you can replace the lines that delete the month-old backup with the following. This removes any files that end with .gz and are over 7 days old:
find ${DEST} -type f -name “*.gz” -mtime +7 -exec rm {} \;

The default logo is located in:
/var/lib/tomcat6/webapps/Oscar12_1/images/OSCAR-LOGO.gif

You can specify an altername logo in the Oscar.properties file:
sudo nano /usr/share/tomcat6/Oscar12_1.properties
loginlogo=

The location of the file is relative to the /var/lib/tomcat6/webapps/Oscar12_1/ directory
If you want to put the replacement image in the images folder, you need to specify that.
loginlogo=images/NEW-LOGO.gif

Note: Any change to the .properties file requires that you restart tomcat
sudo service tomcat6 restart

Once you have changed the .properties file, you can modify the images as required.

Images notes:
600 to 700 pixels high is a good size.
é is Alt-0233