In most cases, you may only remove an item from a dictionary if that value is not used in any records in the CCR database. Before removing a dictionary entry, you should remove all references to this entry from all of the records in the CCR database. It is probably much more practical to simply deactivate the dictionary entry so that it no longer shows up as an option when entering future medical events instead of trying to remove all prior references to that value — see Making an Item in a Dictionary Inactive.

To remove an entry from a dictionary:

1. Start the appropriate CCR dictionary manager — see Starting the Dictionary Manager or Starting the Pathology Dictionary Manager for instructions on how to do this.

2. Select the dictionary from which you want to remove the item in the Dictionaries drop-down field on the Dictionaries window. The window will expand to display the current list of entries in the selected dictionary.

3. Select the dictionary item to remove in the Dictionary grid by clicking on its row. The entry will be highlighted in yellow.

4. Click on the — button above the Dictionary grid. A dialog box will open, asking you to confirm that you really want to delete the selected dictionary item.

5. Click Yes to confirm that you do want to delete the entry. The dialog box will close and the selected item will be removed from the dictionary (disappearing from the Dictionary grid).

If you change your mind and decide that you really don't want to remove the entry from the dictionary, click No and the dialog will close without any changes occurring in the database.

In most cases, if there are records in the database that have this dictionary entry selected in the appropriate field, although everything will function as expected above, the entry will not actually be removed from the Dictionary grid. There will not be any alert message to inform you of this fact, however. In this case, you either need to make the item inactive (the preferred solution — see Making an Item in a Dictionary Inactive) or remove the value from every record in the database in which it appears before deleting the entry again.