What are all the features of a Light Action window?

Every Light on the Light Panel contains a Light Action Window. The purpose of the Light Action Window is to provide a means to add information to a pre-programmed Light, to change its action, and to provide a place to turn each light Off. For more about the definition of a Light, click here.

Immediate Light: Right-click

You can determine whether or not a Light has been programmed as Immediate or Prompted by whether or not the name of the light displays a colon at the end. The Light below ('Front Office Needs Help') does not contain a colon at the end of the name, so a right-click on the light brings up the 'Front Office Needs Help' light action window.

Prompted Light: Regular (Left) Click

This light has a colon at the end of its label, which means that a normal click is all that is needed to open up the window. Otherwise everything else is the same for this type of light.

Active Light

Once the Light in our example has been turned on, clicking on it or its associated popup will bring up the Light Action Window in its active state as shown in the image below. Clicking "Turn Off Light" effectively clears the Light.

Light Action Window Feature Explanations and Walkthrough

All Lights contain the following features within the Light Action Window, and each feature can be used prior to turning a Light On, or within an already active light to Refresh or Update it.

• "Back" button - closes the Light and reverts the user back to the main Light Panel

• Comment Box - the white space where comments can be typed. When a Light is Active, this space will change to a color, as well as to display the time that the light was Turned On. When a Light is active, click in this space as directed to type comments as needed.

Priority values

• P1, P2, P3 - Choosing a P value for a Light gives it a priority over all other active lights.

P1 is the highest priority, followed by P2 and P3. A Priority gives a Light a "time stamp override", meaning that it will take priority of any other active Lights by time. Priority values will sort themselves within their own value as well by flashing the P1 that has been on the longest. In the example below, this Light has been set as P1. Any Lights set with P1 displays a blue "1" tag on the active Light.

The popup associated with the Light will also display a corresponding 1 icon.

Think of Priority values as a way to use a Light to "cut in line" because it allows Lights to sort in an order that is outside of the normal timeline. Without any Lights set with a Priority value, the Lights will sort in order of the time that each one was turned on.

Light activity - Comment History

In the Light Action Window of an active Light, only the last activity will be displayed. To view any other activity that has occurred since the light timer was turned On, click on the Comments button at the top right of the active Light to view all of the previous Comments. The user may view the Conversation name of the computer from where a Light was initially turned on, any previous Comments or BlueNotes, and timestamps of each update. From here the user may also Copy only the Last comment or All comments to paste elsewhere. Click Comments again to return to the Light Action window.

NOTE: If the Comments button seen in the image above appears as the word "More" in the Light Action Window, the BlueNote client installed on that computer is an older version (8.0 through 9.0). For older versions, click on the name of the Light (in this example "Room 2") to view the previous Comments, and More to copy the comments.

Escalate - Escalate makes the entire Light flash, not just the blinking portion on the left-hand side. This option can either be set when a Light is turned on or when it is Updated.

• Delay - Sets a Light to turn on at some point in the near future. In the Action window, choose the Delay button, then click "Turn Light On." With the Delay button chosen, the action window allows you to select the amount of time in the future when the Light should turn itself on automatically. Only the local user will see a timer icon displayed on any Light that has been set to turn on with a Delay.

The Delay feature is helpful for automated alerts or timed events, especially if a user will not be able to have access to BlueNote due to asepsis protocols or other reasons. Right-clicking on the number of minutes allows the user to choose multiples of the amount of time delay.

BlueNotes

Not all Lights contain BlueNotes. You'll have one Action Window for each Light, and depending upon its programming it may contain one or more tabs of BlueNotes, which are pre-set additions that the user can select to modify the meaning of the original Light.

If BlueNotes are present within a Light, the user may click on a BlueNote to tag the Light with that BlueNote's color and/or tone. To choose only one BlueNote, simply regular (left) click on the BlueNote to add it to the Light and turn it on.

If the user would like to choose several BlueNotes before turning the light On, Right-Clicking each BlueNote will add it as a Comment in the Comment Box. Press "Turn On Light" to turn the Light On and post multiple BlueNotes. The corresponding popup will also display the same information.

Light Tags

(Feature included in Version 8.2 and up)

Not all Lights contain Light Tags. If a Light Tag has been programmed in the Lights Action Window, this tag will appear as a new option, either displayed as the word Patient, Client, or Occupied. In the Example below, this Light has been programmed both to allow a Patient tag (P) as well to allow the patient Name to be typed in.

Light Tags will only function on Lights that have been turned On. To turn on a Light, or to add a Light Tag to an active light, open that Light's Action Window and locate the Tag type in orange - in the Example below, this tag type is "Patient." When the Light is turned On, a "P" is visible on the Light Panel as well as on the popup. For patient privacy reasons, the patient name itself will only appear inside the Action Window or in Focused view. Watch the video clip below to see how to turn on a new Light with a patient tag, and then to modify an active Light that has already been tagged with a patient name.

You may notice that the context of this example - Lights programmed with Patient tags - is very different from the ones seen in the previous images. In this use case, each of the Lights represents a specific patient for the duration of the time that Light is turned On, and then each of the BlueNotes are used to track the patient through the office and through various states. In other words, any Light can be programmed to work as an individual patient tracker, to signal the moment that the patient checks in and to stay On during the patient's entire visit. This type of Light would not be turned Off until the patient has left the office.