How to automatically integrate emailed results from IDEXX into RXworks

The issue:

We have previously been using Symbian for our outsourced pathology. For many reasons we have decided to change labs. Symbian installed software in our system that pulled the results off their server for integration into our practice management software (RXworks). IDEXX does not currently have this complete functionality. They have taken some steps towards automating the process but it still required some manual intervention to import results. The following is how I completed the automation so that results are imported into RXworks without any user intervention.

Setting up with IDEXX

The first step towards this involves getting IDEXX to email the results as an attachment as a txt file named with V and the visit number or P and the patient number depending on whether you want them attached to the visit or patient. eg. V233876.txt

Once IDEXX have set this up it is simply a matter of writing the visit or patient number on the submission form and then they will ad the V or P for you.

Setting up RXworks

First, work out where on the practice server you would like to have a folder to place results in to be drawn into RXworks. This folder needs to be accessible from RXworks and from the computer with your email client.

Next, setup RXworks to automatically poll from that folder location. This is done from task panel>tools and utilities>visits>document integration. Add a new polling location and then set it to poll every 10 minutes or the time period of your choice.

Dragging the reults into RXworks

Now that all that is set up all that needs to be done is to drag the attachment from the email into the polling folder and it will be brought into RXworks and attached to the appropriate visit or patient automoatically. This still requires you to manually drag it into that folder. So the next part is how I completed the automation.

Install and configure thunderbird

We use Thunderbird a Mozilla free open source email client to receive our email. I like it because it's easy to configure and customise it with extensions.

Download the AE autoextract extension from http://www.eviljeff.com/?page=moz-extensions which is the developers home for the project. This extension can be used to extract attachements from emails and the latest version has an automatic extraction setting. Install this in the usual manner(look at the thunderbird documentation if you don't know how).

Configure AE autoextraction for the messages and set it to extract them to the polling folder you set up above. Make it extract messages which have been tagged AE autoextract.

In thunderbird create an appopriate filter to select the messages from idexx which contain the results you want. Add the tag 'AE autoextract' to those messages using the filter.

If you have set it up correctly it should now filter the messages to find ones with results, add the AE autoextract tag and then AE autoextract will act on the tagged messages to extract the appropriate attachements into the polling folder from where they will be pulled into RXworks, all done without any manual input.

Please leave comments if you have any questions