EMERSE User Release Notes

Bundle sharing across the network is now possible

Multiple minor bug fixes and user-interface tweaks

The Synonyms feature is substantially more powerful now

A network feature is now available but may not be enabled at a local site. This network feature allows a user to obtain obfuscated counts based on search terms across other EMERSE sites.

Added ability to display only documents that contain search terms in the Summaries section. This can reduce document "clutter" and also improves performance.

Added a new Filter for 'Vital Status'

Vital Status is now displayed as a graph with the other Demographics graphs.

Can now apply 'Find Patients' to a Patient List (all search terms are considered separated by an OR by default).

Added ability to remove patients from a Patient List based on the Tagged/Untagged checkbox.

Patient List export to Excel now includes additional data fields

It is now possible to view the Demographics charts of an existing Patient List. Previously this feature was only available after running a 'Find Patients' search.

Re-designed navigation of the user interface to make it easier to move around the application. This includes having the search buttons (i.e., "Highlight Documents" and "Find Patients") much more visible so that they are no longer buried on the Terms page.

Added a "Results" section to make it more clear where to find the results

When no results exist the application will now show details to the user about what needs to be done to be able to generate results (e.g., selecting a patient list, entering search terms, etc).

Additional user interface enhancements

Performance improvements

This version now includes a preliminary version of the networking component (which is off by default)

User interface has been completely overhauled to a more modern look and feel

Filters have been added. It is now possbile to filter based on Dates, Demographics, and Document source.

Attestation page is now "unified" into a single table

Improved handling of single and double "curly" quotes

The Quick Terms text entry box has been replaced with a Temporary Terms page that mirrors the look/feel/functionality of the Saved Terms (previously called Term Bundles)

Longer queries are now more likely to be successful

The Exclude Terms can now work when searching across All Patients. Previously it only worked on an existing patient list.

Improved feedback about query term construction (e.g., characters that do not affect the search results)

Performance enhancements

Multiple minor bug fixes

Fixed a recently introduced bug that showed an incorrect patient count for the number of patients in a selected patient list.

Parentheses and other non-indexeed characters are now silently stripped from the search string since they are not included in the query

Terms are automatically changed to lower cases to better match how the searching is done by default, unless the term was specified to be a case-sensitive term

A new 'trends' feature has been added to the All Patient search

Minor interface improvement related to adding descriptions for Saved Patient Lists

Results from an All Patient search are now divided among tabs. This was done to improve system performance, to incorporate a new 'Trends' feature, and to allow individual tabs to be turned on/off due to privileges.

Fixed a display error that didn’t always properly warn about obsolete MRNs in a Saved Patient List.

Fixed a display issue: When the document display name is long, it overlapped with the document count section. This has now been fixed.

Improved the way in which patient lists are sorted by name, so that it is now a case-insensitive sort.

Parenthesis and other non-indexed characters are now silently stripped from the search string since they are not included within a search query.

Query terms are automatically changed to lower-case to better match how searching is done, unless the term was specified to be a case-sensitive term.

Fixed a display issue related to a deleted bundle on a user’s list of bundles. Clicking the warning icon did not do anything but now it displays a pop-up that appears when you click on the other part of the row. When you close the pop-up, the page now properly shows the bundle list.

Fixed the secondary of sorting of the demographics charts when displaying by frequency labels. This was an issue when there was a 'tie' in frequencies.

Improved the error messages display to users during an invalid login.

When Term Bundles are displayed in the table, the sort by owner function now sorts based on the bundle owner’s last name, not the first.

Fixed an issue related to copying an existing bundle.

A link to the user guide is now available from the EMERSE menu (upper right corner of the application)

EMERSE will now warn users if a patient MRN in a Saved Patient list is obsolete, meaning that it is no longer active in the main EHR system (which can occur if a patient has been assigned more than one MRN, and then the duplicate MRNs get merged into just one).

The selected Attestation reason is now shown in the upper right EMERSE menu

Fixed a user interface issue where the Cancel button did not always appear for the Merge Patient function

The dictionary used for spell checking has been updated

Minor user interface enhancements

Fixed a bug related to merging Venn diagrams that appears in certain browsers such as Safari

Small user interface tweaks for sharing patients lists and term bundles

Improved handling of characters that can cause problems with file systems when a filename is generated for a Patient List export

Fixed a recently introduced bug where the 'Remove' button on the Attestation page was not working in some browsers

Fixed a few issues related to sharing a Saved Patient List or a Term Bundle to individual users (for example, it was possible for Saved Patient List to be shared to a specific user more than once)

Minor user interface fixes

Fixed a recently introduced bug that prevented the demographics charts from loading in certain situations

Minor bug fixes

Fixed a bug related to mixed case wildcard searches with the Advanced Terms feature

Improved search performance

Minor user interface fixes

Improved the ability to search metadata fields in the Advanced Terms feature

Fixed wildcard searches in Quick Terms and Term Bundles for case-insensitive searches where mixed case terms were used

Minor bug fixes

Added "Loading…​" messages to various screens to provide additional feedback on what the application is doing

Minor user interface fixes

Minor bug fixes, for example fixed a rare "null pointer" error

Improved the performance/responsiveness of EMERSE for the Overview feature, especially when multiple users are on the system at the same time.

Fixed a bug that prevented non-owners of a patient list (that was shared to them) from adding comments/tags. Now anyone with access to a patient list can add comments/tags, but only the owner can make other changes to the list.

Fixed an issue where the the total document counts displayed in the Overview screen was incorrect when a custom date range was used

Fixed the formatting of some buttons on the Synonyms screen (cosmetic change only, no change in function)

Fixed an issue that could have prevented some documents from displaying when using certain Chrome browsers

Changed the name of the "Read" column for clinical notes on the Summaries page to "Viewed" to make it more clear what it represented

Renamed the button "Advanced Search" to "Advanced Terms" to make it more clear what it was about

Renamed the tab "Add/Upload" tab on the Terms pages to "Manage Terms" to better reflect what can be done with them (which includes removing terms)

Changed the font to be easier to read and more standard across various browsers and operating systems. The default font for EMERSE is now the Google font, "Muli"

Several fixes were made to ensure that the demographic charts displayed correctly in the Internet Explorer 11 (IE 11) browser

Fixed a bug that occurred with the Internet Explorer 11 browser on Windows 7 when trying to update the name/description for a Term Bundle

Made an improvement to the system to related to 'timing out' during searches that take a long time.

Removed help balloons from the application (users did not like them)

Improved the handling of double quotation marks when using them in multi-word queries

Added the Comments and Tags to the Overview page (available with a Saved Patient List).

Fixed a bug that displayed incorrect counts for the demographic charts sorted by frequency with an All Patient Search

Improved highlighting of terms with wildcard searches in the Quick Terms section

Fixed a bug that could prevent a user from removing a patient from a patient list

Fixed bug that could cause the Mosaic view to display incorrectly when a case-sensitive term was used

Minor user interface enhancements

Minor user interface fixes

Improved messaging for users when Lucene encountered a query it could not handle

Changed the name of "Quick Patients" to "Temporary Patient List" to make it more clear what it means

Changed name of "Patient Lists" to "Saved Patient Lists" to make it more clear what it means

Improved handling of unbalanced double quotation marks in the search terms

Renamed the "Search" button to better describe the function depending on the context (i.e., "Find Patient" when searching across all patients and "Highlight Documents" when searching across a patient list).

Added a new button "Highlight Documents" to the Patient Lists view (Temporary and Saved) to enable searching directly from that screen. This was especially important after moving a patient cohort identified from an All Patient Search ("Find Patients") to a Temporary Patient List, since users were previously confused about next steps for searching within the patients.

Various other minor user interface fixes (e.g., the Tag checkbox now stays in the right location when using Safari)

Improved navigation visibility by darkening buttons for selected options