Note for Ontario Users: In Ontario, Ocean eConsults are currently in a limited release. For more information on eConsult in Ontario as part of the Ontario eServices Program, please review the Overview of eConsults in Ontario article.
Automatic email notifications are triggered for both patients and senders whenever a consult and/or referral status is changed from "New" to "Booked"/"Cancelled"/"Declined", or a referral's appointment date or time is changed.
Simply "Accepting" an eConsult and/or eReferral does not typically send an email notification (unless you are in the uncommon scenario that the eReferral is submitted under an eRequest specifically configured to do so).
Determining which email address(es) notifications are sent to depends on the conditions under which the consult/referral was sent and the nature of the notification.
- An example of the notification email provided to senders, receivers, and patients can be seen by expanding the image on the right.
-
Notification Email Rules
Email Notifications for Referrers
Notification emails are sent to the sender/referrer when:
- An appointment date is booked, changed, or removed
- Booking comments are added or changed
- The consult and/or referral is forwarded
-
The consult and/or referral is declined and returned to the original referrer*
*Note: If the referral has been previously forwarded to an additional stakeholder who then declines the referral, the original referrer will not receive a notification email regarding the declination.
- A secure message is sent to the sender/referrer (patients do not receive this message)
Notifications will be sent based on the following conditions:
An Ocean user is associated with the referral
-
Notifications will be sent to the first email address that is set, based on the following order of email addresses in the user's My Account page (found in the Ocean portal, clicking on your name at top right hand corner, and selecting "My Account"):
- Referral Notification Email
- Clinical Delegate Email
- The Delegate's email address (if delegates have been added)
- The user's Email Address
The referrer provided a specific notification email when sending the referral
The provided email will be used.
The referral was sent from an eReferral Custom Form in an EMR
Notifications will be sent to the referral notification email configured for the specific user within the EMR's custom form, or the site within the EMR's custom form.
Email Notifications for Referral Delegates
If a delegate user sends a referral on behalf of a referring provider, Ocean will use the provider's user settings to determine where the notifications are directed.
Therefore, the delegate user will NOT receive the notifications themselves, unless their email address is set as the "Referral Notification Email" in the provider's My Account page.
The conditions listed above in the "Email Notifications for Referrers" section still apply to determine which of the provider user's email address the notifications are sent to.
Email Notifications for Receivers
Notification emails are sent to the receiver when:
- Any new consults and/or referrals are received to the site
- A secure message is sent to the recipient
- The consult and/or referral is canceled
- The consult/referral is forwarded to the recipient and then revoked
- Notification emails will be sent either at the offering level, the listing level, or the site level, depending on how notifications are configured for the site.
- Notifications regarding a specific consult/referral will be sent to the first email address that is set, based on the following order of email addresses in the site's Admin View (of the Ocean Portal):
-
- Offering Notification Email
- Set by the site in the specific Health Service Offering tagged in the "Service Details" section of a site's "Directory Listing"
-
- Listing Notification Email
- Set by the site in the "Advanced" section of the "Directory Listing"
-
- Default Incoming Referral Notification Emails
- Set by the site in the "Referrals Configuration" section
-
- Clinical Administrator/Ocean Support Contact
- Set by the site in the "Site Account" section
-
- Site Payer's email address
- Set by the site in the "Billing" section
- Note: You can list multiple emails under each section by listing them out, separating each email address with commas (,) or semicolons (;).
-
Email Notifications for Patients
- For an email notification to be sent to the patient, the patient's email address must be included in the referral (which is only permitted after an acknowledgment of the patient's email consent).
- You can enter, update, or remove a patient's email address at any time by editing the patient demographics within the consult/referral window.
Notification emails are sent to the patient when:
-
- The referral is successfully sent
- An appointment date is booked, removed, or changed
- Booking comments are added or changed
- The referral is forwarded
- The referral is canceled
-
The referral is declined and returned to the original referrer*.
*Note: In some circumstances, the referral recipient may opt out of notifying the patient of the declination. Further, if the referral has been previously forwarded to an additional stakeholder who then declines the referral, the patient will not receive a notification email regarding the declination.
- For more details about eReferral-related email notifications that are sent to patients, please refer to "What email notifications will patients receive regarding their eReferrals?".
-
Disabling Email Notifications
- If you are a receiving site and would like to disable automatic email notifications to patients, you can do so in the "Site Features" section of the Admin Settings page (in the Ocean Portal).
