Sorting

Mary Jo · Joined: 09 Mar 2012 Posts: 1

I would like to sort our data in the following way.
Received specimens - All ED locations with a line to separate from next sort
Received specimens - All inpatient locations with a line to separate from next sort
Received specimens - All OP locations with a line to separate from next sort
Unreceived specimens

The sorting within each of these groups should be Processing Time. So received ED specimens should be at the top of the screen. Within the ED specimens, the oldest Processing Time should be at the top.

We've tried several different things but can't get the data to sort in this way. Suggestions?

ericai · Posted: Mon Aug 26, 2013 9:39 pm Post subject:

I was not able to get it exactly as you described, but pretty close.
With multiple sorts, the space in between is going to get messed up on subsequent sorts but for the most part it will work.
The first thing to remember is to always put the quick-sort on top of the list. The quick sort is just that, quick and careless, it will mess up any ordering from previous sorts, so you should keep them at the top so they apply first, and the more respectful, careful group-sorts come last and they will try to preserve the previous order as much as possible.
So for this example I created a sort on process time (quick-sort) first and kept it on the top. Then the outpatient locs, inpatient locs, er locs, and finally the grouping by collected/uncollected.
You should group sorts on same fields together, so we have multiple sorts on 3 fields: Proc time, Locations, and Status.
-Proc Time
-Loc1
-Loc2
-Loc3...
-Status
Here is what my order looks like:

WUB and WPN are my outpatient, MIC is inpatient, and ER, MER, and SER are ER's.
The arrows show where I checked the 'Insert Space' option.
Here is the result of this sort:

The ER's are all up top, followed by inpatient (MIC), then outpatients. The Insert space option had no effect for me, but with more than one inpatient locations you might have better luck.

Here you can see where the collecteds and uncollecteds separate. (R's and U's)
The ICU,WGN, and WIC fall at the end of the collecteds list because I have no sort defined for them.

Down in the uncollecteds here you can see that the ER's are up top, the sole inpatient (MIC) is in the middle, and the outpatients (WUB) are at the bottom.

Finally it's too bad we have to create a sort for every single location. The only way around this is to try to use the 'Loose' matching option.
So if you are lucky, all or several of your ER locations would begin with the same first or first and second letters:
First 2 letters matching, 'Loose matching' would work: ER1, ER2, ERM, ER.
The 'Group Sort Comparison String' for this one would be: 'ER'.

First letter matching, 'Loose matching' still works: ER1, EMR, ER
'Group Sort Comparison String' for this one would just be: 'E'.

But if your ER locations are like: MER, SER, ER... loose matching won't work, the first letters must match.