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If you have been assigned the Evaluator role in ECWeb, your responsibilities will include:
When you log into ECWeb as an Evaluator, the first screen you will see is the Evaluator's Main Menu. The choices available from the menu are:
List Consultations to Evaluate: To review or enter evaluation data for a consultation record that is being evaluated, choose List Consultations to Evaluate. A list of all consultations that have been designated for evaluation at your facility will display, and you can filter or sort the list to find the consultation you want. Resources: Select Resources to access pertinent resources available on the National Center for Ethics in Health Care web site. Help: Select Help to access supporting documents developed by the National Center for Ethics in Health Care, and to display contact information you can use to obtain technical assistance with ECWeb. Edit User Profile: Select Edit User Profile to change your ECWeb password, or to modify information about yourself in the ECWeb database, such as your credentials, email address and name. Exit System: Select Exit System when you are finished using ECWeb and are ready to log out.
Evaluate Consultations
When a consultation has been completed and is ready to be evaluated, you'll receive an email notifying you of that fact. Let's say that you just received an email notifying you that consultation number XXX-07-003 - a case in which a patient's family requested assistance in deciding on DNR status for the patient - is now available to be reviewed.
You'll find the consultation in the list of consultations designated for evaluation at your facility.To view this list, just go to the Main Menu and select List Consultations to Evaluate.
The Consultation List will display. Initially, the consultations display in reverse chronological order - with the consultation entered most recently into ECWeb listed first. You can tell this from the Consult No column. The Consultation Number is the identifier that ECWeb automatically assigns to each new consultation record. It is in the format: Facility Number, followed by Fiscal Year, followed by Consult Number. (The first record within a fiscal year is Consult Number 001, the second Consult Number 002, and so on.) Since the first item in this list has the highest Consult Number, it is the most recent consultation.You can sort the list in a different order by clicking any of the column headings.
In addition to sorting the list, you can also filter the list to reduce the number of records that will display by selecting one of the checkboxes beneath Select the consultation records you would like to list. The checkbox values represent the different statuses that a consultation record can pass through during the evaluation phase. They are:
When a consultation is initially submitted for evaluation, the record is placed in Pending Evaluation status. Once response data has been received from at least one respondent and entered into the system, the status changes to Evaluated. A record is placed in No Evaluation Response status when it was not possible to obtain a response after at least two attempts to contact respondent(s).
By default, all of the status checkboxes are selected, so consultations in all three statuses are displayed. The consultation record mentioned in the email will be in Pending Evaluation status. To display only records in Pending Evaluation status, you would uncheck the Evaluated and No Evaluation Response checkboxes. They you would click the Display List button.
To open a consultation to enter or view evaluation data, you just click the underlined Consultation Number - in this case consultation number XX-07-003.
The Ethics Consultation Feedback Log screen displays. On this screen, you enter the names of each individual to be contacted during the evaluation. You'll also log each attempt that you make to contact them. ECWeb automatically enters the Requester's name as Respondent #1 since attempts should always be made to have the requester evaluate the consultation. Respondents #2 and #3 are left blank for you to complete if appropriate.
For each individual to be contacted, you must enter a first and last name, and specify the individual's role. Beneath each individual's name are spaces to log three attempts to contact that person.
When soliciting a response from a VA staff member, use the Ethics Consultation Feedback Tool for Staff - a copy of which can be obtained from ECWeb's Help screen. You can print this form and mail it, or send an electronic version as an email attachment. In this case, since you have an email address for the patient's physician - Dr. Jane Doe - so you've decided to email the form to her. Next to First Attempt under Dr. Doe's name, you should select the E-mail radio button, then enter the Date on which you sent the request.
The following week, you receive the completed Feedback Tool in the mail from Dr. Doe. To record her responses, you return to the consultation record and click the Enter Evaluation button beneath Dr. Doe's name.
This data entry screen is an exact duplicate of the Feedback Tool you sent Dr. Doe, so completing this screen is simply a matter of transferring Dr. Doe's responses a line at a time. You should know that future ECWeb development plans call for automating this process. For the time being, however, evaluation data needs to be entered "by hand" as described.
If you're not able to enter all of the data into this screen at one sitting, you can click Save & Finish Later to save what you've entered so far to the database. Then return to finish later.
Once the screen is complete, click Finish Now. This saves all data to the database and, if the consultation record is in Pending Evaluation status, updates the status to Evaluated.
Enter any additional information you'd like about your communications with this respondent in the Comments field. That completes the Respondent #1 block. If you plan to contact additional individuals as part of this evaluation, you would enter data for them in exactly the same way in the Respondent #2 and #3 blocks further down the page.
Note that, if you are not able to contact a respondent, ECWeb requires you to log at least two contact attempts before you will be allowed to "close without evaluation."
When you close the evaluation record, its Status is now listed as Evaluated, followed by a 1 in parentheses, on the Consultation List. This indicates that evaluation data has been entered for one respondent.
There is one final thing you may want to know about the Consultation List. A dropdown menu appears at the top of the three right-hand columns. If you would prefer to display data other than the default values in any of these columns, you can make a different selection from any of these dropdowns.
Additional Commands
In the upper right-hand corner of the screen, you'll find a number of important commands:
notes/addendum: Select notes/addendum to view notes or addenda to the consultation. You will not be able to enter a note or addenda. Any comments you might have should be entered in the comments field on the Ethics Consultation Feedback Log. print: Select print to print a hard copy of the feedback log for this consult. To print a hard copy of a completed evaluation response, view that evaluation and then click print. view consult abstract: Select view consult abstract to review key data that was entered into ECWeb for this consultation. The data is presented as an abstract (or summary) organized into three sections: Requester Data, Consult Data, and Finished Consult Data. The summary can help you select the appropriate respondents for the evaluation of this consultation, and help you remind the respondents about the nature of the consultation. help: Select help to display ECWeb's Help screen in a separate window. (The Help screen contains links to electronic versions of both the Ethics Consultation Feedback Tool for Patients and the Ethics Consultation Feedback Tool for Staff.) list consults: Select list consults to return to the list of consultations designated for evaluation. search: To search for consultation records from your facility that contain a particular word or phrase, select search. main menu: Select main menu to return to the Main Menu screen. exit system: Select exit system to exit ECWeb entirely.
Resources
You can access a set of helpful resources available on the National Center for Ethics in Health Care's web site by clicking Resources on the Main Menu.
Help
If you're having difficulty using ECWeb and need technical assistance, you can select Help from the Main Menu to display contact information for the National Center for Ethics in Health Care. Staff there will be happy to assist you. You can also access a number of useful supporting documents developed by the National Center for Ethics in Health Care under Help.
For technical assistance using ECWeb, you can contact any of the individuals listed at the bottom of the Help page.
You can also access the following supporting documents from the Help screen:
Ethics Consultation: Responding to Ethics Questions in Health Care: Select this link to view an electronic copy of the Ethics Consultation Primer. Blank Ethics Case Consultation Summary Template: If you're a Consultant who prefers to conduct your consultation "off-line," use this form to collect the data. Then enter the data into ECWeb when you're finished. Ethics Consultation Feedback Tool for Staff: This is a printable form to solicit responses from VA staff members who participated in an ethics consultation. Evaluators could print and mail the form, or send an electronic copy as an email attachment so staff members can complete it. Ethics Consultation Feedback Tool for Patients: Evaluators should use this form to solicit feedback from patients and other non-staff who participated in an ethics consultation. Evaluators could print and mail or bring the form to the patient or family member so that they can complete it.
Edit User Profile
Like everyone else who uses ECWeb, you have a user profile that includes key information about you, such as your ECWeb username and password. You can make changes to your ECWeb user profile - including changing your password - by selecting Edit User Profile from the Main Menu.
You can change the following fields in your user profile: password, first and last name, credentials, and email address. Every field - except Credentials - is required. If you add your credentials, they will appear after your name on the health record summary note.
NT Username is the only field that you may not change. Your username will be entered by the Administrator Consultant and must EXACTLY match the username you use to log into your computer.
Your ECWeb Password must be a "strong" password at least 8 characters long, and must include:
Once you've made all the change(s) that you want to your user profile, you'll need to click the Save button to apply the change(s) to your user profile. Clicking the Back button will return you to the Main Menu without saving the change(s).
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