This article is part of the systems administration guide. You will require administration access to view the pages mentioned in this article.
CareRight allows you to automatically send Appointment related SMS messages either:
- A set time after an appointment is created (from 0 minutes); or,
- A set number of days before an appointment occurs.
To do this you need to set up an Appointment Trigger. Before proceeding, you need to have created:
- A Message Type and Template (for the SMS message that will be sent); and,
- Appointment Types
1. Appointment Trigger overview
Appointment triggers are associated with an Appointment Type.
For example:
- An appointment type of "Surgery A" may have a corresponding appointment trigger that sends a reminder/confirmation SMS 72 hours before the surgery.
- An appointment type of "New Patient Consult" may have a corresponding appointment trigger associated with it that sends a "welcome" SMS 30mins after the appointment is made and a reminder/confirmation SMS message 48 hours before the appointment.
2. Appointment Trigger Type A creation - On Creating an Appointment
To add an Appointment Trigger that sends a SMS message when an appointment is created (or a set number of minutes after creation), follow these steps:
- Click Administration.
- Click Appointments
- Click Appointment Triggers.
- Click New Creation Trigger.
- Complete the fields using the table below for reference.
- Click Create Appointment Trigger.
Field Name | Description | Example |
Name | The name of the trigger, used when linking to Appointment Types | New Appointment Notification |
Required Condition | Trigger only activates if appointment is in this condition. (e.g. Any Unconfirmed condition, Any confirmed condition, Any condition, etc). Remember, each appointment status is mapped to a condition e.g. confirmed, unconfirmed, complete or cancelled . see SMS Setup for more details on this. | Any Unconfirmed Condition |
Minutes to wait before firing | Number of minutes after the appointment is booked before the email is sent. | 30 |
3. Appointment Trigger Type B creation - Reminder a set period before the appointment occurs
To add an Appointment Trigger that sends a SMS X days before an appointment, follow these steps:
- Click Administration.
- Click Appointments
- Click Appointment Triggers.
- Click New Reminder Trigger.
- Complete the fields using the table below as a reference.
- Click Create Appointment Trigger.
Field Name | Description | Example |
Name | The name of the trigger, used when linking to Appointment Types | 2 Day Notification |
Required Condition | Trigger only activates if appointment is in this condition. (e.g. Any Unconfirmed condition, Any confirmed condition, Any condition, etc). Remember, each appointment status is mapped to a condition e.g. confirmed, unconfirmed, complete or cancelled. see SMS Setup for more details on this. | Any Unconfirmed Condition |
Activation Time | A fixed time of day to activate the Trigger (e.g 7pm). | 19:00 |
Days before the appointment to fire | Number of days prior to the appointment day that determines the date to activate the trigger. | 2 |
An example trigger might be:
Trigger Name: 2 Day Notification. Appointment Condition: Any Unconfirmed Activation Time: 7pm (19:00). Trigger Period: 2 days. This trigger would activate daily at 7pm. It would look for all unconfirmed appointments on the date 2 days from today. |
Triggers may fire multiple times for the same appointment.
For example, using the above trigger (2 Day Notification) if a patient's appointment is set for Friday and they are sent a SMS on Wednesday they may ring and change the appointment to the following Monday. This means that they will receive another SMS on the Saturday (for the appointment that was moved to Monday).
NB. Appointment reminder triggers activate regardless of when the appointment was created.
If an appointment is created at 6:45pm 2 days before an appointment and there is a trigger set for 7pm, the SMS will still be sent to the patient requesting a confirmation, even if he patient is potentially still on the phone with the CareRight user.
4. Appointment Type Configuration
Now that you have created the Message Type, Template and Appointment Trigger, it is time to link these to an Appointment Type. An Appointment Type can have many combinations of Triggers and Message Types. This means you can have multiple SMS messages sent at different times for an Appointment Type. Messages, triggers and appointment types are not location specific so all locations use the same configuration.
Follow these steps to set up triggers for an appointment type:
- Click Administration.
- Click Appointments
- Click Appointment Types.
- Click Message Types for the Appointment Type.
- Click New.
- Complete fields using the table below as a reference.
- Click Create Appointment Trigger Config.
Field Name | Description |
Appointment Trigger | The name of the Appointment Trigger that determines the conditions under which this notification is activated. |
Message Type | The appointment SMS Message Type to use for the notification |
Template Override | Template overrides allow you to customise the message sent to Patient for each appointment type even though the user is sending the one Message Type |
An example Appointment Type, Trigger and Message configuration might be:
Appointment Type: Initial Consultation (60mins) Trigger 1: Trigger Name: Appointment Creation (after 30 minutes, when appointment is Unconfirmed only) SMS Message Type: New Patient SMS Template Override: [blank] Trigger 2: Trigger Name: 2 Day Notification (at 7pm, 2 days prior to appointment, when appointment is Unconfirmed only) SMS Message Type: Appointment Reminder Template Override: [blank] |
Upon booking an Initial Consultation (60mins) appointment:
- Trigger 1 would activate 30 minutes after the booking was made. It would check that the appointment is unconfirmed and send a "New patient SMS" SMS message.
- Trigger 2 would activate daily at 7pm. It would look for all unconfirmed appointments on the date 2 days from today and send the "Appointment Reminder" SMS message for each.
