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Assigning Allergens to a Resident/Patient

Kevin U
  • Updated

When an Allergen is Assigned to a Resident/Patient

When an allergen is assigned to a resident/patient, that person’s personal menu is automatically updated to remove any food items associated with the allergen (to see how a removed item due to an allergen displays on a person's personal menu, see Personal Menu Legend > How "Do Not Serve" Items Appear).

Assigning Allergens to a Resident/Patient

If your account utilizes a Connect interface to an EHR, then the interface allows allergens to be assigned to people profiles in your MealSuite account.

If you are not receiving allergen assignments from your EHR, then you can manually assign allergens to a resident/patient in their profile. To do so:

  1. Open the person’s profile.

  2. The Allergies field contains the allergen groups available in your account to assign to the profile (an allergen group contains the food items that can cause the specific allergic reaction). Click into the Allergies field and select the allergen group(s) to assign to the person.

    allergies_field.png

    Note 1: When an allergen group is assigned to a profile, the Allergies field is highlighted orange to serve as a visual cue.

    Note 2: If you do not see the allergen to assign, see I Don't See an Allergen to Assign to the Profile? below for troubleshooting steps.

    Note 3: An allergen group that is not assigned any food items displays with the following message: "[Allergen group] does not contain any food. Please make sure all appropriate foods are assigned to this group so that inappropriate recipes are not served to this person. You can do so in Tools | Food | Settings | Allergens & Dislikes".


    no_allergen.png

    This indicates it is an allergen group created by your account or a parent account and has yet to be assigned food items. To assign food items to a allergen group, see Allergen Group: Adding/Removing Food Items. 

     
  3. Click the Save button at the top right to apply your changes. When a person is assigned an allergen group, the Allergies field is highlighted orange to serve as a visual cue. 

Updating Allergens on Profile when there is a Connect Interface to EHR

If your account receives allergen assignments from your EHR via a Connect interface, then when you manually update an allergen assignment for a profile, (either assigning or removing an allergen), the system displays the following message to indicate that allergens are controlled by the EHR and as such will be overwritten the next time Connect receives an update message from the EHR. 

"This person belongs to a group currently set up to receive allergy updates via Connect. This means that any changes you make to their allergies in MealSuite will be overwritten the next time a connect update message is received. We recommend adding Allergies directly in your EHR application, or using the Do Not Serve function in Personal Menus." 

allergy_connect_message_profile.png

When Personal Menu Items and Substitutes Conflict with Allergen

If the the person's profile contains any personal menu items, specific substitute or fallback substitute items that conflict with the allergen assigned to the person, then a prompt appears stating such (after clicking Save).

personal_menu_allergy_assignment.png

By clicking the Keep Them Although They Will Not Be Served button, you can keep the items on the personal menu but shown as excluded (via Display Options), as per screenshot below.

personal_menu_yogurt_crossed_out.png

If you do not want the keep the items on the personal menu, then remove them by clicking the Delete All Items with Allergen button.

Why is "Unknown [Allergen]" Above the Allergens Field?

If a Connect interface message from an EHR contains an allergen that is not mapped to a corresponding MealSuite allergen, then the Connect interface cannot process the message. Such a message is considered unresolved, and above the Allergens field the unknown allergen is displayed in red text as follows: "Unknown [Allergen]".

profile_unknown_allergen_cropped.png

To resolve unknown allergen messages from Connect, see Resolving Allergy Data Mapping Issues.

Removing Assigned Allergen from a Resident/Patient

To remove an assigned allergen from a resident's/patient's profile: 

  1. Open the person’s profile.
  2. Click into the Allergens field to open the allergen list. The allergens selected for a profile have a green check mark. Click a selected allergen to remove its check mark, which indicates it is no longer assigned to the person's profile.

    remove_allergen_from_profile.png
     
  3. Click the Save button at the top right to apply your changes.

I Don't See an Allergen to Assign to the Profile?

If you don't see an allergen to assign to a profile (as per above steps), then follow the troubleshooting steps below:

First Option: Confirm if Allergen Group is Available in your Account

First confirm if the allergen group (an allergen group contains the food items that can cause the specific allergic reaction) is available in your account for use; see Displaying the Allergen Groups Available to your Account.

If the desired allergen group is available in your account, it could be that it is unpublished. If so, an unpublished allergen group is not available to be assigned to profiles.

  • If your account owns the allergen group, then you can republish it; see Publishing an Unpublished Allergen Group.
  • If your parent account owns the allergen group, then the parent account will have to republish it; please reach out to your parent account for them to publish the allergen group. 

Section Option: Creating an Allergen Group

You also have the option of creating an allergen group and adding items to it. To do so, Creating an Allergen Group. 

Once the allergen group is created, you can then assign it to persons (as per above steps).

Third Option: If Creating an Allergen Group is not Possible

If creating an allergen group is not possible, then on the person's personal menu, you can mark an individual item as "do not serve" (see Marking an Individual Item as Do Not Serve) or mark a Dislikes & Likes group as "do not serve" (see Marking a Likes & Dislikes Group as Do Not Serve). 

Fourth Option: Other Workarounds

In addition, the two methods below are available to notify staff that an item should not be served. Note, however, that the item can still be ordered, and if so will appear in production.