Can patients book appointments into the clinical system via Patchs?
Patients can book appointments directly into the clinical system using:
- Patient Facing Services: The practice needs to make the appointments available in the clinical system via online services: https://help.patchs.ai/hc/en-gb/articles/12967973826583-Patient-Facing-Services-PFS-settings.
Once appointment booking is enabled, the patient needs to be enabled for Patient Facing Services: https://help.patchs.ai/hc/en-gb/articles/4411202638743-Linking-your-Online-Services-account-to-Patchs (linking their Online Services account to Patchs).
Once the patient has linked their account to Online Services, they can book into appointments made available by the practice: https://help.patchs.ai/hc/en-gb/articles/6162856614551-Booking-an-appointment-with-your-GP-Practice.
- Self-Book: Patients can self-book upon invite for particular slots (specified by the staff member sending the invite) in the Patchs portal, and these will be saved straight to the clinical system appointment book.
Can we ring-fence appointments so when sending messages out to ask patients to book into, for example smear appointments, only those patients contacted can book in?
Yes
Does it support self-book into flu clinics set up in EMIS/TPP via batch messaging invitations?
Yes
How is the practice notified when a patient has booked an appointment?
It currently does not notify the practice, they will just see the appointment in the appointment book in the clinical system.
How can a practice review an appointment and make suggestions for a day and time that may be better suited for the appointment reason?
The practice can message the patient directly at any time via SMS or email.
Does Patchs send out appointment reminders?
Yes
Do appointment reminders have the text back CANCEL option?
For SystmOne practices there is a link on the reminder message that the patient can click to cancel the appointment.
If a Clinician is absent from work, does Patchs bulk cancel the appointments booked and send texts to the patients saying their appointment has been cancelled?
No. The practice would need to bulk cancel the appointment in EMIS, and then send a bulk message to those affected patients via Patchs. We are investigating adding this feature.
When an appointment has been completed and a GP Practice sends a survey link via text within Patchs, how does this survey feed back into Patchs?
We will be adding a new feature to send the Friends and Family Test after an appointment soon. In addition, Patchs automatically asks for feedback after each online contact with the practice. This is accessible to the practice within Patchs.
Can you set Friends and Family messages to send to specific slot types after the appointment?
The friends and family test are currently asked in Patchs after a patient submits a request or responds to a practice message. We are looking to set this up to ask patients after appointments as well.
What do booked slots have to do with appointments?
Booked slots are separate to appointment booking. They are a way to assign Patchs requests to specific users for them to deal with on a future date. The aim is to support routine care as well as on-the-day demand. This can help spread demand and match it to your staff capacity. It combines the advantages of an appointment book, with the flexibility of an inbox to prioritise and respond to patients as you see fit. This is to support routine (https://help.patchs.ai/hc/en-gb/articles/4408149582231-Booked-slots).