This module is designed to be a flexible way to store recall information.
At our practice we use it to keep track of regular check-ups, special authority drug re-applications, specialised vaccination programs amongst others.
There are 2 parts to a successful recall program. Firstly entering the appropriate data in the first place, and secondly being religious about running the recall list makers every week. If you are using regular recalls, if you don’t run your list maker every week you will miss some recalls.

There are 3 ways to enter the data for other recalls (childhood immunisation, adult tetanus, cervical smears and mammograms have dedicated screening tools which are well documented in the help file and manual).

• Firstly you can lodge a one -off recall where you set the date you want the person recalled at and leave the interval empty. This is good for items that need to be done once only eg 2nd hepatitis A vaccination. This once only recall will remain in the remain as due or overdue until it is deleted from the other recall list. So the idea is that once the patient comes in to have their 2nd hepatitis A vaccination, that is recorded in the notes/immunisation areas and the recall is then deleted.
• The second type of recall is a regular recall. For this recall you enter a start date then the interval in months for the recall. This type of recall is useful for people requiring regular tests or examinations. eg annual thyroid monitoring. These recalls only appear once on the recall list, and never appear in the overdue list - so you need to keep a hard copy of the recall list and check them off as they turn up. Obviously you don’t delete them when they come in for their recall otherwise next year they won’t get recalled. This is why these recalls never show on the overdue list.
• The last way of using the other recalls is with recall sets. A typical recall set is well child. The recall set I am demonstrating below is for a newborn.

To create a recall set
1) browse recl_set.dbf table (Tools/Advanced/Browse a Table Menu)

2) add records

• Type = WELL CHILD (as many as you want )
• Reason = What ever - 9/12 check, 18/12 check, 5 year check whatever YOU want in your recall set.
• Interval = number of months from their next birthday (in this case their 1 year birthday).

In this example that would be  -3,6 and 48. That is the tricky bit, the DOB recalls work from the NEXT birthday, so for a child under 1, the 9/12 check is
-3 months in relation to their next birthday, and the 18/12 is +6 months.

• Method leave blank for a single recall (which is what we want here)
• Base_on = DOB  (in caps as I have typed here)

The table looks like this

This represents a recall set  for a “well child check”, suitable to be added to any child less than 1 yr and that would generate recalls at 9/12,18/12,3yr & 5yr.
You then need to add this recall set to each child under one (using the other recalls page on the clinician). Easy to do as you add a new child to the practice, or you could set a nurse to do it from the age-sex register tool scoped to children < 1 this will give a list to work through.

Similarly recall sets were designed for groups of patients with commons needs:

This “diabetes” set would generate recalls for these for items using a default base date of today (if the recall set was added to the patient today). This is one way of spreading recalls over the year.

The next table has the entry for male M or female F 60 year “pit stops”. These recall sets would generate a recall at 60 for a full checkup followed by regular annual recalls for BP at 1yr intervals starting and one off recalls at age 65 for lipids + PSA/Rectal exam for males.
You (or your nurse) would add these to all patients aged 59 years. That only needs to be done once per year and you could do it by using the age sex-register to generate a list of all 60 year olds (could even be separated into males and females to make it easier). Using the on screen list generated, click on the full clinician button, click on the other recalls tab, choose >60 pit stop M (for males) from the recall sets popup and then click on save. Move onto the next patient!

The recl_set.dbf table will end up looking like the one below. Entries do NOT have to be all together for a recall - so you can add new items in the future. However if you add new items, patients who have already had a recall set added will not have the new item/s automatically added.

So you can combine absolute dates (01/03/97) with regular checks so which is useful for generating followups at a particular time of year. Using it for fluvacs is obvious, but we also often do preventative checks in February and March when our other workload is less.
If you are doing "time of year" preventaion campaigns the recall sets combine well with the form letter writer - more about that in another section.

The recalls generated by the recall sets are the same as discussed at the beginning of this section, so that regular recalls will not show as overdue, but one -off recalls will. Once a recall set is added to a particular patient it can be edited the same as any other recall including changing the base date - so you can adapt it for a particular patient, it is not cast in stone!