Prerequisites
- Patient Reminders is supported for the following EMRs: QHR Accuro, TELUS PS Suite, TELUS Med Access, and WELL EMR Group OSCAR Pro.
- Your EMR Schedule(s) must be activated for use with Ocean Patient Reminders under an Ocean Licence. To do this, please refer to the following article: Adding Ocean Licences.
What are Patient Reminders?
Patient Reminders are automated messages that are scheduled to send before or after a patient's booked appointment. You can notify patients of their upcoming appointments, request confirmation, include secure messages/PHI, and invite them to complete forms and questionnaires online, without the risks of traditional email. With Ocean’s EMR integration, patient records are seamlessly updated without any scanning, typing, or manual staff involvement.
Key Benefits
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Easy for Patients - Patients are not required to create an account or log into a patient portal in order to confirm their appointment and/or complete Ocean eForms.
- EMR-integrated - Ocean automatically checks the EMR schedule to identify which appointments match the trigger criteria for each reminder rule and sends a message accordingly. When a patient confirms an appointment, the status is automatically updated in the EMR, along with any completed Ocean eForms.
- The Ocean Platform also supports dedicated Referral Reminders for clinics receiving Ocean eReferrals. Ocean Sites can trigger Patient Reminders from eReferrals or their EMR schedule, but not both. To learn more about Referral Reminders, please refer to: Set Up Automated Referral Appointment Reminders.
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Customizable - You can customize the reminder rule criteria (e.g. by provider, appointment type and/or reason, age) to define the patients that should receive a given reminder.
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Email and text- Ocean allows you to send text messages in addition to email, enabling your clinic to collect appointment confirmations from patients without an email address.
How it works for patients:
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Patient Reminders via Email
- Patient receives an email from Ocean. You are able to customize the email subject and body to convey important pre-visit information. Patients will have the option to download an .ics file to create an event in their calendar app. Please note that the information that appears in the event is not editable. If you include a secure message, eForm or enabled appointment confirmation on your reminder, the patient should be directed to click on the hyperlink.
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- Patient proceeds to validation step. The hyperlink in the email will take the patient to a webpage that asks them to validate their information before proceeding. By default, Ocean will ask for the date of birth but you can enable other questions for additional security like health number, EMR ID, or a pre-determined access password. Ocean will use this information to check against the chart and ensure this patient is the correct recipient.
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Patient is notified that their appointment has been confirmed. If you included a secure message or eForms in the email template, the patient will have the opportunity to complete them now.
The appointment status will be updated to 'confirmed' in your EMR.
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Patient Reminders via Text Message
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Patients receive a text message from Ocean. The text message is a set message that includes your Organization name, date and time of the appointment, the provider name and instructions on how to opt out of receiving text message reminders in the future. Ocean will send text messages to the mobile phone listed in the patient's chart.
If the reminder is configured to include eForms and appointment confirmation, the patient will be instructed to check their email.
If the patient doesn't have an email address on file, they can confirm their appointment via secure link in the text message.
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Patient confirms their appointment. Once the patient clicks the link, they will be notified that their appointment has been confirmed.
The appointment status will be updated to 'confirmed' in your EMR.
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To learn more about setting up your reminder rules, please refer to "Creating / Configuring Patient Reminders".
To learn more about Text Messaging for Patient Reminders, please refer to "Sending Patient Reminders via SMS Text Message".