How to do an Advanced Search for Patients

What is an Advanced Search?

For most of your searches in WRMD, you will be doing simple searches and will not need to perform an advanced search. However, there are times when you may want to find out whether a particular field among several patients contained one or more different values.

The advanced search is an incredibly powerful tool where you can search against your records in an unlimited number of ways. In advanced searches, you use logic to combine your search terms. This requires attention to detail and a clear logic so that your search is effective. 

Conducting an Advanced Search

Step 1

Visit https://www.wrmd.org/signin and log into your account using the username and password that you registered with. 

Step 2

Click on the Search Patients Link under Quick Links panel on the left side.

Step 3

Click on the gray Go to Advanced Search link on the top right side of the search page. 

Step 4

You will be directed to the advanced search page.

Step 5

Designate the time frame of the search. The time frame will default to the current year; however, you can change the dates by clicking on the drop-down menu calendar to whatever time frame that is relevant to your search. 

Step 6

Write a logical search query that fits the circumstances you want to search against. To learn what makes a good search query, see Creating an Advanced Search Query tutorial in the next segment.

Step 7

Click on the Green Search Records button.

Creating an Advanced Search Query

Step 1

Determine which field(s) you want to search against. Example: “Common Name, Area/Room, Chemistry, Diagnosis, etc.”

Step 2

Set your search parameters by choosing the appropriate operator. Example: “is, contains, does not contain, etc."

Step 3

Type the specific thing you are looking for in the value textbox. This will tell WRMD what you are looking for.

Step 4

To include another field, click the Add New Row. If you need to delete a row, click Delete.

Step 5

Determine the logic you wish to search by.

• AND: When you combine search terms with AND, your results contain everything in which both terms appear. Combining search terms makes your search results more precise: “red-shouldered hawk” AND “gray fox”.
• OR: Using OR between search terms allows to you find all items that contain either term. Using OR will search for items that contain either the word “red-shouldered hawk”, the word “gray fox”, or both.

Step 6

If you want to include more than one term in a field search, use parentheses ( ) to enclose your search terms. Parentheses will serve to group elements in your search.

Step 7

Double-check the logic and operator language you have used to ensure the best search results.

Step 8

Click the green Search Records button.

If your logic was successful, WRMD will pull up the relevant files. WRMD will also notify you if your search fails to pull up any results.