Training Video

What is Pause on Booking?

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

• Practices can opt to have the SMN and letter sequences automatically pause when the patient makes a booking and continue if the patient cancels, or does not attend their appointment.
  
• Alternatively, they can also have the sequence move to Done if the patient reads their health message..

This feature will help automate the workflow for important recall templates to make sure that the patient is recalled successfully and can be turned on for individual templates.

To learn how to set it up, see Pausing a template when a patient makes a booking.

How Does It Work?

When Pause on Booking is enabled for a particular template, HotDoc will continue to send Recalls communications until the patient books an appointment.

• It is recommended that Pause on Booking is used for recalls that requires a patient to book an appointment within a timely manner.
  
  
• We find that practices are choosing to use the Pause on Booking feature for clinical reminders such as Cervical Screening Tests, Mole Checks and Non-Urgent Result recalls but the feature can be turned on for all your recall templates too.
  
  
• 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.

A visual outline of the workflow for Pause on Booking

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. The recall will also move to the Unresolved section of the HotDoc Dashboard:



In these cases, either one of the 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.