BloodSTAR User Acceptance Testing Scenarios
This document guides you through a set of common authorisation scenarios in the BloodSTAR system. Use this document to conduct structured testing, before undertaking a period of self-guided discovery.
Remember you can provide feedback throughout your testing by clicking the Feedback button at the top right corner of each page.
Logging In
For the purposes of testing you will use a web address specific to our user acceptance testing environment.
- Enter the address into your browser.
https://test.blood.gov.au/UAT/BloodStar/
You will be directed to the BloodPortal login screen.
- Enter the provided username and password and click Log In
If you are a registered user of other NBA systems do not enter your regular BloodPortal login details. You will not be able to access the UAT environment with these credentials.
You will be directed to a page where you can select your role and facility.
For the purposes of User Acceptance Testing authorisers have been provided with two roles. Your authoriser role allows you to perform actions in the system related to your normal work as an authoriser. You are also provided with a Medical Officer role so that you can familiarise yourself with the way that Medical Officers will use the system to submit requests.
Please see the document BloodSTAR Step by Step Medical Officer Scenarios for scenarios related to prescribing at http://www.blood.gov.au/bloodstarUAT.
- Select the Authoriser role that you want to log in as.
Changing your role
Throughout your testing you may wish to change your role to explore how users with other roles are working in the system.
Scenario: Changing Roles
1. Select Change Role at the top of the screen
2. Select the role that you wish to change to
You will be directed to the homepage for the selected role.
Authorisers Home Page
When you begin your testing you will arrive at the Authoriser Home Page.
The purpose of this page is to be the starting point for viewing the assessment work on hand at any particular point in time. The lists on this page contain all request Types: Initial, Dose Change, Additional Dose and Continuing Authorisation.
Awaiting Assessment Tab Lists all requests that have not commenced assessment or have been suspended are awaiting recommencement of assessment.
Completed Assessments Tab Lists all requests where assessment has been completed and notified.
All requests Tab Lists all requests submitted for assessment.
The lists on this page are sorted by urgency with Emergency Requests displayed at the top by default.
As requests age the request will turn red once the agreed timeframe for the selected Urgency has passed.
Urgency / Assessment TimeframeEmergency / Within 2 hours
Serious / Within 1 business day
Standard / Within 2 business days
The filters at the top of the page can be used to locate requests by reference number, urgency or status.
Assessing an Initial Authorisation Request
You will know when an Initial Authorisation is ready to be assessed when it appears on the Awaiting Assessment list in the homepage. For emergency requests (which need to be assessed within two hours of submission), the requesting medical officer will have been prompted to follow the request submission with a phone call to the authoriser.
Initiating an Assessment
An assessment may only be assessed by one authoriser at a time. When you initiate an assessment the request is assigned to you, the assessing authoriser. No other authoriser can assess the request while the request is In Assessment and assigned to an assessing authoriser.
Scenario: Initiating an Assessment
To set up this scenario you will require an initial authorisation request to have been submitted. If there are no authorisation request already submitted you can change roles to a Medical Officer and submit one using the Creating a New Initial Authorisation Request scenario, then changing your role back to Authoriser before completing the following steps.
1. Click Assess on the row of the request that you wish to assess
Step one of the Assessment is displayed.
Once you have initiated an assessment, the request is assigned to you and no other user can assess the request (to avoid duplicate assessments and conflicting data).
If you return to the homepage you will note that the request status is now displaying In Assessment and your name is listed in the Authoriser column.
To resume the assessment, click Assess.
Further scenarios below will guide you through the assessment process.
You may also initiate assessment of a request from the View Authorisation page accessible from the Awaiting Assessment List.
Step 1 - Assessing the Request
The assessment form displays all of the data entered by the Requesting Medical Officer.
At multiple points on the form grey shaded areas are where you, as the authoriser, record your assessments – we refer to these as assessable components.
Each of the assessable components is pre-populated with an assessment made by the system. However as the authoriser you have the ability to over-ride the system determination.
If you override the system determination you must enter internal assessment notes to explain why you have chosen to change the determination.
Even if you are not overriding the system determination, you can add internal assessment notes by clicking on the Add Internal Assessment Notes link.
If you are entering a Decline outcome you must select a Decline reason from the list or enter an Other Decline Reason.
A NOTE ON TERMINOLOGY
Requesting Medical Officer and Treating Medical Specialist
The authorisation request form captures information about the medical officers involved in the request.
The Requesting Medical Officer is the person who is completing the form as such this is the person who was logged into the system and submitted the form.
The Treating Medical Specialist is the specialist who is responsible for the management of the patient’s treatment. This may or may not be the same as the Requesting Medical Officer. For example, a specialist may delegate the task of requesting authorisation to a junior medical officer. In this scenario the junior medical officer is the Requesting Medical Officer (RMO) and must enter the specialist’s details as the Treating Medical Specialist.
The treating medical specialist will be the medical officer notified of a pending review.
Some conditions in the criteria require that the condition is diagnosed by a specialist of a particular specialty. This diagnosis requirement is evaluated later in the form and is not based on who the Treating Medical Specialist is.
A full list of definitions used in BloodSTAR and the National Policy is available via www.blood.gov.au/bloodstar or directly at Definitions
Step 2 – Treating Arrangements, Diagnosis and Criteria
Treatment Arrangements
The facilities at which treatment will take place are displayed. No assessment of these facilities is required.
A NOTE ON TERMINOLOGY
Treating, Administering and Dispensing Facility
The BloodSTAR application uses some specific terminology for Facilities
Facility – A place at which immunoglobulin-related function may take place. This activity may be Treatment, Dispensing or Authorising.
We use the generalised term of facility, as a single facility may perform multiple functions and facilities may take many different forms such as a hospital, a medical centre, a practitioners private rooms, a defence facility, a correctional facility, etc.
Treating Facility – The facility at which a patient's treatment will be managed. This may differ from the facility at which infusions are administered.
Administering Facility – The facility at which immunoglobulin infusions are administered. This may differ from the facility at which the treatment (and the authorisation) is normally managed.
Dispensing Facility – The facility from which it is anticipated product for a given authorisation will be normally dispensed.
A full list of definitions used in BloodSTAR and the National Policy is available at available via www.blood.gov.au/bloodstar or directly at Definitions.
Diagnosis Requirements
The system will check the registration records of the Diagnosing Medical Officer to ensure they have a specialist registration required for the medical condition.
Assessing the request against the criteria
The system will evaluate whether the patient’s condition meets the criteria. This is based on the combination of criteria selected and whether the evidence submitted falls within the qualifying range, as specified in the Criteria by the Specialist Working Groups.
The system will alert you when evidence or criteria do not meet the requirements for the selected Medical Condition and will populate a Declined assessment outcome.
Step 3 – Approving requested doses
When the medical officer submitted the request, they will have requested one or more doses. For example an induction dose may have been requested along with a maintenance regimen.
The system will display the allocated product for the medical condition taking into account the National Allocation Model (currently managed using a spread sheet but in the future managed within BloodSTAR), patient’s previous treatment, and jurisdictional or hospital preferences.
The medical officer will have either proceeded with the allocated product or may have requested a different product. Where a different product was requested a reason for doing so must have been provided.
Assessing Proposed Doses
When assessing proposed doses the system displays the dose as proposed by the prescriber. If the prescriber has proposed a dose that is outside the Criteria, the notes that they entered justifying the dose will also be displayed.
In assessing a dose you may choose one of three assessment outcomes:
1. Approved as requested – where you are approving the dose without any change to what was proposed;
2. Declined – where you are not permitting access to the dose at all; and
3. Varied by authoriser – where you are permitting access to the dose but with some variation (to quantity or frequency).
When you choose Varied by authoriser you will be prompted with a Dose Variation window where you must enter the details of the varied dose.
When varying a dose you are required to enter a Varied Dose Reason which will be included in the assessment outcome notification sent to the prescriber.
If the varied dose is outside the constraints of the criteria, you will be required to provide a rationale for dosing outside the criteria.
Step 4 – Finalising an assessment
On finalisation of the assessment you must select the Assessment Outcome for the entire request.
- Where approving a request you must have approved all of the assessable components above (excluding doses).
- Where declining a request you must have declined at least one of the assessable components above (excluding doses).
If the Criteria requires that the authorisation is reviewed an authorisation end date is generated.
Any details entered into the Decision Notes External will be communicated to the prescriber.
Any details entered into the Decision Notes Internal can only be viewed by authoriser users.
To finalise the assessment click Finalise and confirm.
Once an assessment is finalised an authorisation record is created against the patient record and notifications are sent to the Requesting Medical Officer and the Treating Medical Specialist.
Suspending an Assessment
From time to time it may be necessary to stop assessment of a request in order to gather more information or seek advice. So that the request does not get stuck as assigned to a user it is good practice to suspend the assessment. This will enable an assessor other than the original assessor to resume assessment when the information or advice is available.
Only the user to whom the request is assigned and an Administrator can suspend an assessment.
Scenario: Suspending Assessment
1. Click on Assess for the request that you currently have in assessment.
2. Click Suspend at the bottom of the form.
3. Enter an Suspense Reason
4. Click OK
The request will be updated with a status of Suspense.
Suspended assessments may be resumed by any other authoriser. When another authoriser resumes assessment they will begin with your partially completed assessment.
Cancelling an Assessment
Cancelling an assessment will remove any decisions made in the assessment to date.
Scenario: Suspending Assessment
1. Click on Assess for the request that you currently have in assessment.
2. Click Cancel at the bottom of the form.
The request will be reset to a status of Submitted and any decisions or notes already entered into the assessment will be removed. The request will become available for other authorisers to initiate assessment.
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
What happens if someone goes on holidays and leaves a request partially assessed?
An authoriser administrator can suspend an assessment to make the request available for another authoriser to continue the assessment.
How will I know how to assess the new information in an authorisation request?
Each evidence item will be configured with assessment instructions to help you understand what it is you should be checking about the provided information. Click on the How do I assess this? link to display the information.
Configuration of evidence items and assessment instructions will continue with input from the Specialist Working Groups.
Changing the Dosing Regimen of an Authorisation
During the course of a patient’s authorisation there may be cause to consider a change to the approved dosing regimen. Changes to the dosing regimen must be approved by the Authoriser; as such a Dose Change Request is required.
A dose Change Request is initiated from the Authorisation. A prescriber must request a change to the dose that is to be changed and provide a rationale for the change. Similar to specifying a dose in the initial request the requested dose must either be within the constraints of the dosing criteria for the indication or must be supported with a reason for dosing outside the criteria.
When a Dose Change is requested the request will appear in the Authoriser’s Awaiting Assessment list