What is Pause on Booking?

Pause on Booking is a feature of HotDoc Recalls which will pause the SMS sequence assigned to a template if the patient has made an appointment.

Generally, the patient's Recall is moved to a Done - Patient read Reminder state when the patient has verified the message. Clinics with the Pause on Booking feature can now opt to have the SMS and letter sequences automatically pause when the patient makes a booking and continue if the patient cancels, or does not attend their appointment.

This feature will help automate the workflow for clinically significant recalls to make sure that the patient is recalled successfully.

The feature can be turned on for individual templates, so clinics can manage a selection of their templates using Pause on Booking, while also using the existing recalls workflow of: Mark As Done: Patient Read Reminder for less significant recall reasons.

How Does It Work?

A visual outline of the workflow for Pause on Booking

When Pause on Booking is enabled for a particular template, the patient experience is much of the same. The only difference is that a patient will continue to receive SMS communication, until they book an appointment.

It is recommended that Pause on Booking is used for those recalls that are more clinical in nature and which require a patient to book an appointment within a timely manner. We find that clinics are choosing to use the Pause on Booking feature for clinical reminders such as Cervical Screening Tests, Mole Checks and Non-Urgent Result recalls.

When the patient books their appointment, either by calling reception or by booking online through their HotDoc account, the recall will pause. Once the sequence is paused, it will change the status of the recall to either To Action: Patient Has Appointment or In Progress: Patient Has Appointment

What Do the Statuses mean?

In Progress: Patient Has Appointment

If the appointment that the patient books matches the appointment that is linked to the template (ie: for an immunisation recall a patient books an immunisation appointment - see below how to set this up in your Dashboard). The status of the recall will update to: In Progress - Patient has appointment. You will not need to action this recall further. 

To Action: Patient Has Appointment

If the patient books an appointment that is different from the one that has been linked in the template (ie: the patient books a standard appointment for an immunisation recall) the recall will still pause, but instead update to the status: To Action: Patient has appointment. In this instance, there are 3 ways possible ways in which the recall can be managed through the Dashboard.

1. In your appointment book in your clinical software, update the appointment type of the patients appointment to match the one that is linked to the recall. This will automatically verify the appointment and change the recall status to: In Progress.       
   
2. You can verify the appointment in the Dashboard, this can be done by selecting the patients name, and clicking the verify appointment green button on the Result Detail screen. Please note that this workflow will not change the appointment type in the appointment book, it will just verify the appointment and change the status of the recall to In Progress.
   
   
3.  There may be some instances where the patient books an appointment for an unrelated reason to the recall they have received. In these cases, you may wish to send out the recall again, to encourage the patient to book another appointment. To do this, click the start again button in the results details screen. This will start the sequence of text messages again from where it left off.

What happens after the Patient has attended their appointment?

Once the patient is seen for their appointment, HotDoc will check to see if the recall was marked as given or completed in the patient's record. If so, it will mark the recall as Done: Resolved in Clinical Software in the HotDoc Dashboard.

If the recall has not been actioned by the doctor during this appointment time, the status of the recall will change to: To Action - Patient Seen, Not Resolved. In these cases, either of two workflow options below can be followed:

• Ask the doctors to update the patient file. Nurses can facilitate this by going to the Unresolved tab, filter by Doctor, print and ask the doctors to update the patient file. This is the workflow we recommend.
  
  
• Choose to start the recall again. 

Important Things To Note:

•  If a patient cancels their appointment, the recall will automatically restart the sequence from where it left off. 
  
  
•  If you add appointments outside of your session times (eg: a call list for a nurse) HotDoc will consider these as an appointment for the patient and pause the recall. In these cases it is best that you manually restart the sequence in the Dashboard.

How do I set this feature up?

To set the feature up, follow the steps in the following article link:
Pausing a template when a patient makes a booking