AngelTrack integrates with VectorCare to auto-import the calls you accept, as well as to push back updates on crew progress.
Configuration
You must already have a VectorCare account that represents your ambulance service. If you are not sure how to get one, then contact the hospital network that you are wishing to serve.
Once that's done, login to AngelTrack with Administrator or Captain privileges, go to Settings, and select the VectorCare Configuration item.
Follow the instructions on the VectorCare Configuration page carefully. You must configure both VectorCare and AngelTrack with information about each other.
Selecting a proxy employee
On the configuration page, AngelTrack will ask you to pick an employee account to act as the VectorCare proxy. All trips and updates pushed into AngelTrack by VectorCare will be logged in the name of this employee account; that way, you can easily distinguish between those modifications versus changes made by your own employees.
You can create an employee account in AngelTrack specifically for this purpose.
Trip Imports
When you accept a trip in the VectorCare user-interface, VectorCare will automatically notify AngelTrack. AngelTrack will then pull down the trip details, creating a new dispatch record for the trip.
Patient DOB or MRN required
The patient data sent by VectorCare must include a first name and last name, and at least one of the following:
- Social Security number (in VectorCare datafield "ssn")
- Medical record number (in VectorCare datafield "medical_record_number_primary")
- Date of birth (in VectorCare datafield "patient_dob")
Otherwise AngelTrack cannot be sure it is matching to the correct patient record, and therefore will have to create a new patient record for each trip. This could result in a lot of duplicate patient records if there is a patient without a DOB who travels frequently.
Normally this is automatically enforced by VectorCare, but every VectorCare implementation by a hospital or hospital network is different, and it is possible that an implementation might not collect this demographic data.
Automatic attach of facility records
When a new trip arrives from VectorCare, AngelTrack will search your facility records to match the name + street address + city + state of the pickup address and also the destination address. It will automatically attach any facility record that matches exactly. The problem is, VectorCare does not have your trauma registry's facility list on board, and therefore does not transmit a state facility code, so the transmitted facility names and street addresses may not exactly match any record in your facility list -- even if the intended facility is present under a slightly different name or street address.
Unfortunately, this means your dispatchers may be required to look-up and attach the correct facility records to each trip received from VectorCare.
This hassle can be minimized if the requesting hospital system pre-loads your state's official list into their VectorCare deployment, so that the facility name + street address transmitted by VectorCare to AngelTrack will match the state's list, thus enabling AngelTrack to auto-link the correct facility records.
Automatic setting of activation time
In AngelTrack, the activation time represents the date and time at which a dispatcher should assign the call to a crew.
VectorCare requests do not stipulate an activation time; they contain only a pickup time and a dropoff time (aka the apppointment time). Therefore AngelTrack automatically sets the activation time to be 45 minutes prior to the pickup time.
Trip updates pushed by VectorCare / Overwrites during auto-update
If either the requester or the acceptor uses the VectorCare UI to modify any aspect of the trip request, VectorCare will automatically notify AngelTrack, which will then fetch the updated trip request and apply it to your dispatch board.
This auto-update action might over-write changes made by your dispatchers, such as the attachment of origin or destination facility records, or adjustments to the activation time. Depending on how your dispatchers handle VectorCare trips, it might be frustrating. So, by default, AngelTrack will ignore any updates received from VectorCare once your dispatchers make any change to the trip record in AngelTrack.
For this to work well, your dispatchers must hold off -- as long as possible -- on making any changes to the dispatch records, to allow AngelTrack to continue accepting updates from VectorCare which might contain relevant changes. Once the appointed time comes near, and the details of the trip request in VectorCare are unlikely to change, your dispatchers can make their changes to the dispatch record in AngelTrack.
You can disable this behavior, and therefore accept all VectorCare updates even when they undo changes made by your dispatchers, by unticking the ☑ Ignore trip updates from VectorCare once a dispatcher modifies a trip checkbox on AngelTrack's VectorCare configuration page under Settings.
Reviewing Data Received from VectorCare
You can review the list of all trips received from VectorCare by accessing the VectorCare Configuration item under Settings, and then clicking the "VectorCare Trip Log" link.
You can also review all VectorCare-initiated changes to your data by accessing the Journal Search item under Billing Home, and then filtering to the employee account that you designated as the VectorCare proxy.
If the patient's VectorCare MRN is available, AngelTrack will place it into the "Barcode" field of the patient record, from whence it will appear on any printed run report.
The printed run report will also show the original VectorCare request ID.
ETA reports
When you accept a trip in VectorCare, you will specify an "agreed time", which is your ETA. When your crew later arrives on scene, AngelTrack automatically reports their actual arrival time to VectorCare. VectorCare thereafter has all the data it needs to analyze ETA performance, without need of additional reports pulled from AngelTrack.
That said, you can still pull those reports yourself. Your "agreed time" aka the ETA you gave in VectorCare is stored in AngelTrack's dispatch record as the "Time to be on scene" aka the pickup time. You can therefore use AngelTrack's various on-time performance reports, which compare your recorded pickup time with your actual arrival times.
Progress Updates
For any trip received from VectorCare, AngelTrack knows to automatically notify VectorCare of crew progress. AngelTrack will phone in the following events:
- Crew goes enroute
- Crew arrives on-scene
- Crew begins transport (this is reported as "Passenger On Board")
- Crew arrives at destination
- Call is closed as completed, delegated, or cancelled.
Standing Orders aka Recurrences
VectorCare allows the requester to submit a "standing order", which creates a string of requests across a date range -- like a M/W/F dialysis schedule.
If you accept a standing order, the string of requests will each enter AngelTrack separately; because VectorCare does not have an auto-reschedule mechanism like AngelTrack's, standing orders cannot make use of AngelTrack's auto-recurrence features.
If any of the requests eventually gets cancelled, VectorCare will automatically tell AngelTrack to cancel the trip on that date.
Wait and Returns
The two legs of a wait-and-return are booked in VectorCare as a round-trip pair, and so both requests must be accepted and dispatched separately.
AngelTrack will mark them as a wait-and-return pair only if you accept (in VectorCare) both legs of the round trip.
Delegations
If you accept a trip in VectorCare but then delegate it to an affiliate who does NOT report progress to you, then AngelTrack will report the trip to VectorCare as a cancellation.
Whereas if you delegate to an affiliate that reports their progress to you, then AngelTrack will send the necessary progress updates onward to VectorCare, and when the call closes, will report it to VectorCare as a completion.
Auto-Tagging of VectorCare Trips
If you want AngelTrack to automatically apply a tag to all dispatches received from VectorCare, then create a tag named "VectorCare".
AngelTrack will also apply any tags that are marked ★Default.
Early Activation
If you accept a trip in VectorCare for a certain time but then roll early upon request from the patient or facility, the VectorCare system may not know that you activated ahead of the scheduled time. If VectorCare then pushes an update to AngelTrack, the update will try to re-assert the original activation time. AngelTrack will ignore that change as long as you've already got a crew enroute.
Troubleshooting
If you accept a request in VectorCare, but it does not afterward appear in AngelTrack, you can quickly troubleshoot the issue.
First, make sure that AngelTrack is configured to use the correct VectorCare API. If you are accepting trips for Kaiser-Permanente, you must choose that API rather than the default.
If that's not the problem, then in the VectorCare web portal, under Settings | Open API, scroll down below the AngelTrack webhoook you created, and click the "Fetch Webhook Call History" button. Normally, you should see one or more webhooks in the log.
If there are none whatsoever, then please contact VectorCare support and ask them to verify that Open API is enabled systemwide on your organization's account.,
If there are some, but the "Response Code" column contains anything other than 200 (which means OK), then please consult this chart to see the meaning of the response code:
- 403: Authentication failed, please check that the VectorCare Client ID, Client Secret, and RSA Public Key configured in AngelTrack match those configured in VectorCare.
- 422: Required datafields were missing from the VectorCare request.
- 429: Too many VectorCare messages arriving all at once on the webhook in AngelTrack.
- 425: This is a rejection of a duplicate VectorCare message arriving on the webhook, which happens normally when some other error occurs first and then VectorCare automatically retries the request.
For all other response codes, please contact AngelTrack support, and we will troubleshoot it on our end.