Importing from clipboard?

[mrrrgh]

Apologies in advance, I don't know if this topic title describes my issue.



I work at a hospital and I have been able to copy and paste data from a patient list into an Excel spreadsheet into a list I can customize to track patients I work with. I had a macro that would take the data copied and pasted and organize it in the way I needed it in a design that works for me.

I'm trying to convert this system to Access to give me more control over the data and to try and make the process of creating the list a little more automated. I also have an Access database for "tracking", which is required by hospital management so I was hoping I could use the patient list database to streamline the process of entering interactions into the tracking database.

I'm not sure how to get the copied and pasted patient list into an Access in a way that will let me manipulate it in Access to do what I want it to do without having to add several steps of a) pasting it into Excel, b) importing the spreadsheet into the Access database, and c) cleaning the data that ends up in the final Access table.

Is there a way to import data in a spreadsheet or table format directly from the clipboard, which would allow me to skip Excel altogether? Or does anyone have a better idea? I'm using Access and Excel 2010.

[June7]

What is the source of patient list - what program?

I have dealt before with the question of VBA controlling clipboard to copy/paste records into Access and the conclusion was can't be done. Can copy records to clipboard but the reverse doesn't seem doable.

[mrrrgh]

What is the source of patient list - what program?

It's Cerner Powerchart. It's a standard hospital charting program, but probably not used in any other setting. I just select a list of patients and I'm able to paste into Excel and it pastes seamlessly, or even Word and it pastes into a Table. I'm trying to remove as many steps in this process as possible.

Right now I have the Excel sheet I'm pasting the patient records into just linked to the Access database and I can run reports and forms with that. It would be easier and more useful if I could import directly to an Access table.

[orange]

What technical info do you have about Cerner PowerChart? Does it support ODBC linkage from Access or other software?
Does it have built in routines to do data extracts to a specific format?

[June7]

Unless Cerner Powerchart is based on some db structure that Access can recognize (Access, dBase, SQL, Oracle), doubt the two can communicate. Did you try the manual paste action into Access table? Be sure fields are in the same order and then select entire destination row to paste to.

[orange]

I did a little Googling and found this
http://www.cerner.com/solutions/Hosp...cute_Care_EMR/

There is reference to it being a relational database, but no details. I did see other materials that indicated the company used an Oracle database, but it was in a forum/questions, not from CERNER.

I also noted that Ray Milhon on this forum does or has worked in HealthCare.