# Viewing Remote Data

The CPRS user now has two choices for viewing remote data. One is the traditional Remote Data View which has been streamlined, the other is VistAWeb. Each system has its advantages.

The rest of this section follows Remote Data Views. If you want to use VistAWeb, documentation is available on the VA Documentation Library (VDL).

To view a patient's remote data, use these steps:

1. After opening the patient's record, see if the text on the Remote Data button is blue. If the text is blue, the patient has remote data.

2. Select the tab you want remote data from (e.g., Labs or Reports).

3. Select the Remote Data button to display a list of sites that have remote data for the selected patient.

4. Select the sites you want to view remote data from by selecting the check box in front of the site name and then select the Remote Data button again to close the list.

5. Select the report or lab you would like to view from the Available Reports or Lab Results section on the left-side of the screen (click the plus sign in order to expand a report heading).

Note: With the exception of the DoD Consults report, choosing a Department of Defense (DoD) report does not limit you to DoD data. For example, if you choose Microbiology under Dept. of Defense, you will get DoD data and remote VA data. You do not have to run a separate report to get VA data.

It may take a few minutes to retrieve the data. While CPRS retrieves the data, the message "Transmission in Progress" will be displayed on the tab.

Note: For remote data, the local and remote sites must use the same names for the data they want. Nationally released health summaries will work.

Depending on how the report or lab is configured, CPRS will return the remote data in one of two ways.

Text Format with Site Tabs

If the re mote data is in text format, the data from each remote site will be displayed under a separate site tab. To view data from a particular site, click on the appropriate tab.

Table format

If the report or lab is available in table view, CPRS will return data from all of the sites in a single table. The "facility" column indicates where the data in a particular row was collected. The table can be sorted by facility or by any other column heading (alphabetically, numerically, or by date) by selecting the appropriate heading. Selecting on the heading again will sort the table in inverse order.

6. To see detailed information about a particular item in the table, select that item. If detailed information is available, it will be displayed in the bottom-half of the screen. To select multiple rows, press and hold the Shift or Control key.

Related topics

Remote Patient Data Overview

Choosing RDV or VistaWeb to View Remote Data