how to make multiple copies of a field, generating UNIQUE field names??

[dkssud]

hi there :

I'm setting up a database for medical records for an acupuncture clinic....

each patient will have their own record,

and within that record, the patient will have basic contact info and medical history etc

that all seems straight forward so far...

but I'm a bit stuck on how to organise the patients treatments...

I have a basic outline and layout of fields for a single treatment,

[date of treatment, duration, objective signs & symptoms, subjective, progress, treatment given, points used etc]

i wanted to "duplicate" those fields for the 2nd, 3rd, 4th treatments etc.... [up to 24 probably....]

but when i duplicate or copy and paste a field for the 2nd treatment, it is linked to the original field....

and if i change the data in the 1st it changes the 2nd as well, and viceversa....

i could go through and change everything manually, but thought there must be a way to replicate a field and at the same time generate a unique field name that is added to the database

eg: date of treatment1 -> date of treatment2 -> date of treatment3 ... etc

is it possible in filemaker?

i was doing a similar thing creating forms in adobe acrobat and was able to make multiple copies of a field which would then assign the new field a unique name based on the original name [adding 1.0.1, 1.0.2, 1.0.3 etc]

any help would be much appreciated!

:

tia!

[bcooney]

What you really need is a new table "Treatments" related by PatientID. Then put a portal to Treatments on the Patient form view. Each date of a treament would be its own record.

[dkssud]

thanks for the reply! :

we tried what you said, thanks....

the problem we are still having is for each patient we would like to be able to click new record and that record is then associated with that patient automatically....

and the portal just seems to summarise information from the treatment table - so not sure what benefit it has??

we have kept it simple and set up 2 tables,

1) patient details

2) treatments

then linked patientID [table 1] to patientIDfk [table 2]

from the patient details window, we added a button to go to the treatments layout, but when we arrive there, we have to re-enter the patientID to access information

I wish we could click on a button in patient details and go to a list of treatments associated with that patient, then each record we add is added to that specific patients treatment record

[preferably in order eg: 1, 2, 3, 4 etc]

is that possible??

tia again

:

[Raybaudi]

Yes, the key is to let creation of new records by the relationship.

1) go on the relationship graph

2) double click the = symbol

3) check the box: Allow creation of related records under the treatments table.

4) while in layout mode place a portal, showing records of treatment table, into the patient layout.

[dkssud]

thanks danielle!

i set up a 2 column portal in the patient details window - with treatment number and treatment date

so i can enter treatment 1, 2, 3, 4 etc

and i can enter the date of treatment accordingly

i have 2 questions:

1) can i then access for example, treatment 4 by clicking on something so i can then go to a treatment window and enter the details for treatment 4??

2) after entering in treatment numbers and dates for several patients, if i click on the button to go to view the treatments window, i can access all the the treatments for all of the patients

- i sorted this information by patient number, which helps,

but i would still like to access each patients treatment information directly and just view one patients treatment information...

eg: view patient 1, treatment 1, 2, 3, 4 etc

is that at all possible?

:

thanks!

[Raybaudi]

All is possible with Filemaker !

Place a button inside the portal row and use the script step: go to related record

[dkssud]

thats great!

seems obvious now you mentioned it!!

thank you so much!!

:

i set up GTRR as a script for a button in the first line of the portal and it replicated it for each successive line!

i have just realised an error in my initial database plan

i need perhaps 3 tables

1) patient details

2) injury / complaint

3) treatments

as treatments will be related to a specific complaint or injury

i will try to relate:

- 1 to 2 & 3

- 2 to 3

and then attempt a portal for injuries on the patient window

and a portal for treatments on the injuries window

does that sound right??

[bcooney]

I've put together a demo for you. It might be way off. I went with the assumption that you need to relate an injury to the treatments. So, you'll see that for a Patient, you enter an Injury (by selecting from a library table of Injuries). Then, you view that Injury record, and on that record you enter Treatments. So, you cannot enter a Treatment directly on a Patient record (at least with this UI). If it is possible to enter a treatment without an Injury/Complaint, then this model does not work.

It makes use of two join tables. Since a Patient can have many Injuries, and each Injury can happen to many Patients: PatInj (join of Patients and Injuries).

Also, a specific incident of an Injury can have many Treatments, and a Treatment can be used many times for different incidences of an Injury: InjTreat (join between a specific patient injury and the Treatments Library).

I also added View buttons to demo how you can easily travel around the system hopping thru relationships.

LibraryDemo.fp7.zip

[dkssud]

wow, you are so kind!

thank you very very much for taking the time!

yes, you are right, all treatments will be associated with a complaint / injury - so your model could work

you also gave me some good ideas how to list data eg: having an injury library and treatment library - that could save a lot of time in the future instead of repeat inputting v similar treatments....

I didn't know about the join tables, so thats something to look into

i very much appreciate your thoughts and time to make that demo!!

: : :)

[dkssud]

one more thing we would like to include in the injury table is some kind of image as visual reference

ie: on each patients assessment we could have a blank human figure AND be able to scribble or circle a particular area where the patient may feel pain or has some problem...? or add text to the image?

im guessing there's no image editing capability in filemaker?

i thought perhaps a way to script opening an external application to edit and then save into the database?

or if anyone has a better idea?

it would be great to embed the image on the patients assessment/description of injury, and then just save the drawing as a set of lines and pixels / text on top of the embedded blank figure....

that way, it wouldn't require as much memory space for thousands of images

is that possible???

so far seems like filemaker can do almost anything!

:

tia again

[bcooney]

No problem. It's still fun...and very rewarding to start someone off in the right direction.

[dkssud]

im happy to hear that, thanks!

:

much appreciated

if you're ever in nz and need some acupuncture.....

:

[bcooney]

Certainly not a native FM capability. But you can store graphics in FM's container fields. So, you can mock up something in a graphics package and store the result in FM.

But, is it possible to simply have a library of graphics. I mean, how many possible "areas" are we talking? Then, you'd assign the graphic just like you'd assign the injury.

[dkssud]

well, when i made the .pdf form, i had 4 blank anatomical figures [front / back / left / right]

then i would just select the pen tool and draw on the appropriate area

to make the visual reference useful, it needs to be quite specific

eg: if its a wrist sprain, does it effect the 'front', 'back', 'medial' or 'lateral' side

if there is forearm pain too, i could simply draw on that area to illustrate that...

otherwise i can just write down the details, but a quick circle or arrow on an image is a lot faster....

[bcooney]

I suppose it depends on how many image variations there are. You could filter the image library by "keyword". Just to get you thinking...

[dkssud]

probably 100+

although if i broke it down into different body parts and had a library of them, then added more than one image for each injury, that could work...

better get back to finishing the db first!

:

attempting to import data from some .xl files, but not having much luck getting the information onto more than 1 table, and linking the creation of new records into more than 1 table...

[bcooney]

That's because you can only import into one table at a time. Also, your child records need their parent ID, or they won't relate in FM.