Version 7 - What suggestions do you have for programming the Light Panel?

Programming is how you make BlueNote Communicator Lights just right for your needs. Here are a few questions to ask yourself before you customize the software:

Do I need notifications for patient/client arrivals?

How is the schedule arranged: by provider or by treatment room?

How many arrival buttons do I need?

How many treatment rooms do I have?

Do I need to call multiple clinicians into the treatment rooms?

What other actions, like helping in the lab or the front desk, can be managed with a Light or a BlueNote?

Should I program emergency lights?

Can I consolidate repetitive lights and make my Lightboard smaller?

Should I add a second/third/fourth panel to my Lightboard because we have a large practice and need more than 30 lights?

One way we have made it easy to get started is to initially program the Light panel with 14 generic Lights:

Lights with no colon are single-click. In other words, they are already complete actions so no information needs to be added before the light is activated.

The four default Room lights appear with colons. The colon is a prompt for you to add more information. All default Room lights contain a single set of BlueNotes within each Light. Clicking on Room 1 opens the Action Window where you can view nine pre-programmed BlueNotes.

A BlueNote is add-on information that displays on an active Light along with the main Light name (in this instance, Room 1). This is what the Action Window looks like with the Default BlueNotes:

Another way we have tried to make it easier to program Lights is to provide examples for BlueNotes. You will find these by going to Menu>Preferences>Options>Advanced>System Wide Changes and typing "configure." Choose the BlueNotes tab, then click into a new or an existing BlueNote to bring up the BlueNote Editing window.

Don't know what to program? Watch the video below; it shows what you'll see when you click on the Examples button. Double-click on an Example to use it.

You'll notice that the words on the BlueNotes and Lights are important, but you may also want to depend on Color Tags and Tones to relay information as well. All of these can be chosen and configured in System Wide Changes for each Light and for each BlueNote.

You can create up to eight tabs of nine BlueNotes, so if you need one or two tabs for exam rooms, another one for patient arrivals, and a fourth tab for phone calls, you can choose single or multiple BlueNote tabs when programming each Light.

Need more inspiration? Here are some assorted Light configurations to help you with your ideas.

Simulating Room Flags

Instead of relying on actual status flags outside of an exam room, Lights can be programmed to emulate those signals. Of course, if the Green Flag means "Ready for Doctor" you certainly have the means to spell that out instead of calling the light "Green Flag"!

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Organizing By Provider

With the example above, these four providers have been separated on the Light Panel and each provider's Lights are color coded as well. This loop shows each provider being called to a different room. All lights have been programmed as "Immediate" which allows them to be activated with a single mouse click.

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Single-click Lights Vs. Lights with Sub Menus

Compare the configuration above with the one below. These examples represent the same practice, but the lower one uses fewer lights. This is because the second example is making use of BlueNotes, the sub-menus embedded inside of a Light. Notice that the light panel is smaller, but that there are many more options inside of the three Lane lights than in the entire right side of the panel above.

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Using One Light Panel per Doctor

Not all Lights need to be on the same Light Panel. You can separate providers into as many as four panels, dividing them into work groups if you'd like. Each work group can have its own set of BlueNotes inside of the Lights as well. This way, each work group has a singular visual of their own panel and their own alerts, but can still see other activity in the practice as an option.

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Location Lights with BlueNotes

Notice how every Light in this panel has a colon, which will prompt for the Action Window where you'll see the various BlueNotes arranged in sub-menus. Some Lights have two BlueNote Tabs, others have four sub-menu tabs, depending upon how the Light was programmed. You can make every Light a Location that you then post BlueNotes within to make the appropriate alerts visible to all users.

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Using BlueNote Lights as a Patient Tracker

There are advanced ways to use the BlueNote Light system instead of as a simple flashing light panel. In the example above, all of the notifications are embedded within static buttons that no longer flash or change color based on age. Instead you'll see the amount of time that has elapsed since the Light was first activated, as well as all of the events associated with this Light. In this case, we're using the Lights as Patients, as indicated by initials. The number of patients currently in the practice, as well as their last status, is shown in green on the Light Panel. Providers, locations, and even their Visit Type are being attached to the newest Patient Light to convey all important information about this patient to the providers and staff.

If you need any help using these suggestions in your office, be sure to contact us for additional support. Let us know what communication problems you're trying to solve and we can schedule a customization session with you or create a template that you can begin using immediately.