Please see this article to read about recent changes to Questionnaire validation implemented in Q1 2023.
Note: Throughout this article we will refer to this functionality in relation to questionnaires. However, as the title suggests, this functionality also works for Physical exam, Review of systems, and Structured assessment. All of these use the Questionnaire framework.
Introduction
Carry forward allows a new questionnaire command to be pre-populated with previous answers to its questions. For example, answers to a PHQ-2 questionnaire can carry forward to the corresponding questions in a PHQ-9 questionnaire. Carried forward responses can be changed, if needed, before committing the questionnaire. The goal of this feature is to reduce the burden of re-entering answers that have not changed, and also enables the user to compare new answers the patient may be providing to prior answers.
Key Objectives
- You will learn how to turn this feature on for each questionnaire.
- You will learn the questionnaire requirements for questions.
- You will learn about common errors when using this feature.
Step By Step
Turn on this feature for a questionnaire
- Login to Canvas and open up Settings from the triple line menu
- Navigate to the Questionnaires setting under the Practice section
- Select the desired Questionnaire
- Scroll down to the Carry Forward drop down section
- Select either "Same encounter" or "All encounters"
- Select Save to update the questionnaire.
Use this feature in charting (example)
- Open an existing note or create a new note
- Initiate a Questionnaire command
- Select a Questionnaire which has carry forward toggled on for "All encounters", as above.
- Fill out the answers to the Questionnaire
- Create a new note
- Initiate a Questionnaire command again
- Select the same Questionnaire again
- Notice that the answers are pre-populated with what was selected in the first note
Questionnaire Requirements
- In order for questionnaire responses to carry forward, the following must be true:
- System and code must be the same for the question
- System and code must be the same for the answer choice that is carrying forward
- System and code must be unique for the answer choice that is being pre-populated. If it is not unique, the system has no way of knowing which one to select.
- Type of question (single select, multi select, free text) must be the same for the two questions.
- Answers will only carry forward if they are in a questionnaire that is committed and not entered in error
Common errors
- This feature is configurable by questionnaire. Answers will only carry forward if they come from a question within a questionnaire that has this feature configured to be on.
- For example, if PHQ-9 has carry forward on, but PHQ-2 does not, then answers will carry forward from PHQ-9 to PHQ-2 and from PHQ-9 to PHQ-9. Answers will NOT carry forward from PHQ-2 to PHQ-9 or from PHQ-2 to PHQ-2.
- This feature can be configured so that answers carry forward in the same encounter only, or for all encounters. In the first case, the answer only pulls forward if that question was already answered in the same encounter.
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- The use case for carrying forward within the same encounter is if two different questionnaires contain the same questions. For example, a PHQ-2 is completed in an encounter, and then a PHQ-9 is initiated on the basis of the results of the PHQ-2. The first two questions of the PHQ-9 are the same as the questions in the PHQ-2, so the answers can be carried forward.
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- Carry forward has to be turned on individually for each version of a questionnaire. If you only turn on carry forward for v2 but not v1 of a questionnaire, then responses that were logged with v1 will not carry forward.
FAQ
Q: Does the questionnaire I'm carrying forward to have to be the same questionnaire or can it be different?
A: The questionnaire with the previous answer can be the same questionnaire or to a different questionnaire as long as the above rules are followed.
Q: What happens to older version of a questionnaire if I enable carry forward for a new version?
A: The older version will not automatically have carry forward enabled. Carry forward will need to be enabled for the older versions as well, for that data to be utilized by the carry forward functionality.
Roles
- Provider
- Clinical staff
Comments
2 comments
This does not provide details on how this should be used in charting. How does a user "carry forward" from one encounter to another?
Hi Priyanka, this feature is specific to carrying forward Questionnaire responses. This feature does not allow you to carry forward all commands and content from one encounter to a new one. I added the section "Use this feature in charting (example)". Hope that helps.
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