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.
If you are a receiving site that accepts and books eReferrals, you may want to enable the eReferral Appointment Reminders feature within your site.
This is an an optional part of setting up eReferrals. You must be an Admin user at your Ocean site to enable the feature and complete the configuration.
If you are a receiving site that accepts eReferrals and would like to send automated appointment reminders to patients about their upcoming appointments, follow the steps outlined below to enable these reminders.
- Log in to the Ocean Portal.
- Open the Menu and select the Patient Reminders option.
- Choose the Settings button in the top right hand corner.
- To change the universal reminder settings for your site, click the Edit Configuration button on the right hand side.
- Within the Edit Reminders Configuration page you will want to ensure the Appointment Source is set to eReferrals, and specify a Time of Day you would like the automated reminders to be sent. Save changes.
Note: The Appointment Source will impact what universal settings you can configure for Patient Reminders. If you are a non-integrated Ocean site, you will only be able to rely on your site's eReferrals as the appointment source. If you are an EMR-integrated Ocean site you can choose to use the EMR schedule and access advanced reminder functionality to configure.
- After the universal settings have been configured to use eReferrals as the appointment source, you will note that the Activation Requirements, on the main settings page, update to solely enabling Cloud Connect. To do so, log in to Ocean Cloud Connect.
Note: If your site already has Cloud Connect activated, this section will state that all requirements are met, and you can skip to step J.
- Within Cloud Connect click to Store my Encryption Key, enter it, and save changes.
- Confirm that Cloud Connect updates to indicate your Shared Encryption Key has been stored, and that your site has an additional feature activated for eReferral Reminders. Log out of Cloud Connect.
- Go back to the Ocean Portal and click the Menu to navigate to the Admin Settings page. Under Site Features check off "Enable EMR Integration via Cloud Connect" and Save Changes.
- Use the Menu to navigate back to Patient Reminders, and then Settings. If Cloud Connect is correctly setup, the Settings page will have updated to indicate that all requirements are met.
- Now you need to set up a Reminder Rule to trigger when you would like patients to receive their referral appointment booking reminders. To do so, select Add Reminder Rule.
- Specify a name for your reminder rule, and then choose the number of days before the referral appointment you would like the reminder to be sent out.
- Click 'Save' or 'Save & Enable Rule'. You will be returned to the main Settings page where you can see your new Reminder Rule listed. If necessary, select the Edit button on the right to update or delete the rule.
Note: You can add any number of reminders, to send multiple email notifications to the patient in advance of their appointment. For example, you can configure one to send 1 month in advance of the appointment, 1 week in advance of the appointment, and then another the day before the appointment.
You're all set! At the time of day specified in the reminder configuration, Ocean will use Cloud Connect to trigger a set of appointment reminder emails. These reminders will be sent to any patients with booked referrals in the site that meet the reminder rule criteria, and have patient email consent included.
The appointment reminder email contains the same information that was provided to the patient in the initial booking email notification, including any booking comments, attachments, and the ability to confirm the appointment (if it hasn't been confirmed already). An example is provided below:
