User manual
User manual
Scandinavian Quality Register
for Thyroid, Parathyroid and
Adrenal Surgery
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Introduction
Requirements and recommendations
The interface
Login
Menu
Work space
Help icons
The public section
News items/start page
Links
Expression of interest
Login
Using Password or start using SITHS Card
Using SITHS Card
Logged in
Menus
Patient
New patient - Thyroid
New patient - Primary HPT
New patient - Secondary HPT
New Patient- Adrenal
Search existing patient
View incomplete entries
Statistics
Reports
All data
Registration of operations
New patient
Validation
Save
Search existing patient
Delete patient
Change/Complete operation
New entry for an existing patient
Delete operation
View incomplete entries
Survey
Create a survey
Create questions to your survey
How to answer a survey
Statistics
Reports
Thyroid report A
Thyroid report B
Thyroid report C
Thyroid report D
Primary HPT report
Secondary HPT report
Adrenal
All data
Forms all data
Practical Information for registration
Registration of data
Linking the serial number with the personal ID number
Information on variables contained in the register
Statistics
Incomplete registrations
Questions to the participating clinic
Introduction
The Scandinavian quality register for Thyroid,Parathyroid and Adrenal Surgery,is a web-based application where users from the participating departments can register operations for diseases of thethyroid, parathyroidand adrenal glands. For all diseases, reports can later be generated both for the user’s own department and for all the participating departments. In addition, a total compilation of all data recorded for a certain type of disease can be extracted from the register. Again, this will either be for the user’s own department or a total compilation for all the participating departments. All statistics are presented in Excel format, and can be generated at any time.
The construction of the system also allows patients to be registered with their personal data without these becoming accessible to other department than the user’s own. This means that a search for patients can be conducted on e.g. personal numbers.
The application includes a section that is accessible to the public over the Internet. This section contains a brief description of the register, links associated with thyroid and parathyroid surgery, and news items intended for the public. For the other functions described above, login is required. In addition to these functions, a news section is also included for the participating departments.
Requirements and recommendations
Users are expected to be fairly familiar with the use of a web browser, in this case Internet Explorer 5 or later versions.
We recommend that you do not use the Back button in Internet Explorer, since clicking on this button can result in unsatisfactory functioning of certain features in the application. To navigate in the application, please use the buttons, tabs, and links in the application’s menus and forms.
The interface
The interface is designed for easy navigation and has a clear layout. Figure 1 shows the interface as it appears in the public section. The main components in the interface are the same no matter whether the user has logged in or not. The application consists of three main areas:
- Login
- Menu
- Work space
The various components of the interface.
Login
Besides the title, the top section of the interface also features the login box. Once logged in, this is where the name of the person logged in will be shown. Any login error messages will also be shown here.
Menu
On the left in the application interface you will find the menu, where most of the navigation between the various sections of the application is carried out. The public section only has one menu here. When you have logged in, you will see two more menus in this section, Patient and Statistics. Menus can be minimised and maximised by clicking on the arrow in the upper right-hand corner of each menu.
Work space
The work space is the main working area in the application. Here, operations are registered, patients searched, statistical data and reports presented, etc.
Help icons
Throughout the application you will see a help icon, which, when the mouse curser is moved, will display a brief help text for e.g. a certain function or variable.
Help icon
The public section
The application’s web address is The first page displayed is a public section with the following contents and menu options:
- News items/Start page
- Links
- Expression of interest
News items/start page
The link News items/start page will display a brief description of the register and information on which departments are currently participating. At the bottom of the page, news items are shown.
Links
This page lists links of significance for thyroid and parathyroid surgery.
Expression of interest
Clicking on this link will allow you to send an e-mail to the secretary in charge of the register along with an expression of interest to participate in the register. Your notification will only be considered complete if certain data are submitted. These data are:
- Name
- Position
- Clinic
- Hospital (with address)
- Telephone
- Fax
When the secretary in charge of the register has received your expression of interest, she will send out a number of documents which you are required to fill in and send back. These documents will be sent by regular mail.
Login
To access the clinic-specific functions, e.g. registration of operations and reports, the user first needs to log in. Login is carried out at the top of the application window (fig. 2). For logging in with username and password select “Login with Password”. For logging in with your SITHS Card select “Login with Card”. If you have a SITHS Card which you want to login with for the first time, click “Login with Password”. Please remember if you have once logged in with password and clicked “For login with card” you must use your SITHS Card to login with.
Login
Using Password or start using SITHS Card
Type in your e-mail address and the password you have received either from the secretary in charge of the register or from the doctor in charge at the clinic.
Click “For login with password” if you want to login and you don’t have a SITHS Card.
Click “For login with card” if you want to start using your SITHS Card to login with.
Logging in
Using SITHS Card
If you already logged in with your password by clicking “For login with card” you can now select “Login with Card”. Follow the instructions on the screen and you will be logged in.
SITHS login
Logged in
If any of the data entered is incorrect, a relevant error message will be displayed.
When the user has logged into the system, the name of the person logged in and last logged in will be shown.
Logged in
Click on this button to log out.
Menus
When you have logged into the register, two new menus will be available, Patient and Statistics. In addition, another option will have been added to the Starting page menu, Practical information, which you can click on for tips and advice that may be helpful when using the application.
Patient
In the Patient menu, you will find the options that concern registration of operations for the Thyroid, Primary HPT, Secondary HPT and Adrenal. These may, for instance, include registering a new patient, adding to a previously registered operation, or making a new entry for an existing patient.
Figur 4: The Patient menu
Below, you will find a brief description of the various options in the menu. Each option will be explained more in detail in a later section of the manual.
New patient - Thyroid
Click here to register a new patient for Thyroid disease.
New patient - Primary HPT
Click here to register a new patient for Primary HPT.
New patient - Secondary HPT
Click here to register a new patient for Secondary HPT.
New Patient- Adrenal
Click here to register a new patient for Adrenal.
Search existing patient
This option allows you to search for already existing patients, i.e. patients who have previously been registered for operations.
View incomplete entries
Click here to show entries which 6 months (12 months for adrenal) after the scheduled date for surgery are still lacking data for the entry registration to be considered complete.
Statistics
Under the Statistics heading you can generate statistics for the different types of disease. There are two types of statistics.
Figur 5: The Statistics menu.
Reports
While the reports will show statistics from the different disease types with the time interval you have indicated yourself, they will not include all data recorded, but only statistics based on predetermined variables. The reports can show statistics for the user’s own department as well as for all the departments. Some statistics are provided with graphs in the form of bar or pie charts to make the presentation of data clearer and simpler. Reports are displayed in Excel format.
All data
This option allows all data from the register to be presented for the selected disease type in Excel format. Data is presented for the user’s own department and the time interval between the years selected. The statistics are presented so that they can be easily imported into a statistics program, e.g. SPSS.
Registration of operations
Registration of operations is the main function of the application. There are four different types of operations for which you can register data:
- Thyroid
- Primary HPT
- Secondary HPT
- Adrenal
Since the registration procedure does not differ significantly between the various types, there is no need for a procedural description of each of the four types; instead, a more general description will be given. Here, we shall use Thyroid as the example, from which all the screenshots have been taken.
It is important not to navigate outside the field of navigation during registration, i.e. one should limit oneself to using the buttons and tabs found in the work space for the registration in question. Should you, for example, click on an option in the menu – any option whatsoever –, all the variables you have registered so far will be lost and registration must start over from the beginning.
New patient
To register an operation for a new patient, choose one of the options containing New patient followed by the disease type you wish to register. Example) New patient – Thyroid
(To register an operation for a new patient who has been registered for operations previously, choose the option Search existing patient instead of New patient.)
For each type of disease, the registration is broken up into several areas or fill-in forms:
- Basic data
- Preoperative data
- Operation
- Postoperative data (Not available for Adrenal)
- Follow-up ≤ 6 weeks (Not available for Secondary HPT)
- Follow-up 6 to 12 months (Not available for Adrenal)
- Follow-up 12 months (Only available for Adrenal)
Figur 6: Tabs for registration.
You can access the various forms by clicking on the tab for each form. We recommend that you complete the forms in the correct order from left to right, i.e. starting with Basic data. Each form should subsequently be filled in from the top downward. The tab Follow-up 6 to 12 months is shown when the registered surgery date dates back six months or longer from the current date.
There are four different ways for filling in variables, i.e. by:
- multiple-choice menus
- Two-choice buttons
- text fields
- calendar
When a new registration is made, all variables will be blank, i.e. nothing has been entered in advance.
When certain options are chosen for some of the multiple-choice menus and the two-choice buttons, additional variables will be shown. The reason why they are not shown earlier is that they only need to be filled in when a certain option for another variable has been chosen. For instance, when Available has been chosen for S-calcium, two text fields will be shown, one for total calcium and one for ionised calcium. These fields do not need to be filled in if Not available is selected and, consequently, they will not be displayed. (See figures 7 and 8).
In a few cases, the choice of a tab can influence what is and what is not shown under another tab than the one you are currently on.
Figur 7: Calcium not available
Figur 8: Calcium available, additional variables are shown.
Validation
When you click on a tab, a validation will be made of the fill-in form you are currently on. If anything is entered incorrectly or if e.g. a mandatory variable is left blank, you will not be able to leave the tab until this error has been corrected.
Save
To be able to save a registration entry, you must have filled in all the forms including Follow-up ≤ 6 weeks. You can save from the tabs Follow-up ≤ 6 weeks and Follow-up 6 to 12 months. If you click on the Save button without having filled in the mandatory forms, you will be notified of this and will not be able to continue saving until you have gone back and completed the registration. The Back button leads back to the forms.
If all the forms have been filled in, a list of some key variables will be displayed with the values you have entered for these. The reason for this is to give you the opportunity to go back and correct these values if any of them should prove to be incorrect. The Back button leads back to the forms. When you have verified that the values are correct, click on the Save button.
Figur 9: Verify entered values.
When you have saved the registration entry, you will arrive at a form where you are required to enter some personal data on the patient.
Figur 10: Patient data.
It is important that this information is entered, since you will not be able to search for the patient in the future if it is omitted.
When you have filled in the personal data and clicked on Save, you will receive confirmation that the data has been saved.
If you subsequently click on Back, a surgery list will be shown for the patient you have just entered into the system. Since this was a new patient, the list will only contain the operation you have just registered.
Search existing patient
Click on the Search existing patient link in the Patient menuto search for patients in the application.
Figur 11: Search patient.
You can search on personal numbers, first names and/or last names. This information can be indicated in full or in part. For example, you can enter 41 in the personal number field to search for all patients with a personal number starting with 41. Since the register is not associated with a specific country, no checks are carried out as to whether the personal number entered complies with a specific format.
When you have entered all the desired search data, click on Search to start the search. If any results are available, these will be presented below the search box.
Figur 12: List of patients.
In the example (figure 12), only one search result is shown generating a single hit on a patient. To view the operations registered for a certain patient, click on View operation(s). To delete the patient with all its operations, click on Request delete.
Delete patient
To delete a patient you must make a request to the administrator. Click Request delete (figure 12), type in the reason for the delete on the Request delete patient page (figure 13) and click on Submit request. The request will now be visible for the administrator, who will accept or decline the request.
Figur 13: Request delete patient.
Change/Complete operation
This will display a page with a list of all operations registered for the patient chosen. For each operation, you can click on the button Change/complete entry to open the entry/operation in question. You may later change and/or complete the registration. (Figure 14)
New entry for an existing patient
To enter a new operation for a patient who has already been registered in the system, please search for the patient as described above. In the search results list, click on the View operation(s) button for the patient whose registration entry you wish to change or complete. This will display a list of operations registered for the patient so far. Above this list, you will see three links, one for each type of disease. Click on the link for the type of disease for which you wish to register an operation.
Figur 14: List of operations.
Delete operation
To delete an operation you must make a request to the administrator. Click Request delete (figure 12), type in the reason for the delete on the Request delete operation page (figure 15) and click on Submit request. The request will now be visible for the administrator, who will accept or decline the request.