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Administrative
Add and manage patients, manage appointments and manage transport.
Appointments
Use Communicare appointments to book future appointments and record services provided without an appointment, for example, walk-in patients.
SMS messages and reminders
In Communicare V21.1 and later, you can send appointment reminders to patients using Telstra Health's SMS gateway (TH Notify) and a new interface.
Enable SMS
To configure Communicare to send SMS with Telstra Health's SMS gateway (TH Notify), enable the module and assign system rights to user groups.

Administrative
Add and manage patients, manage appointments and manage transport.
- Patients
  Communicare uses the term Patient to refer to the clients of a health service.
- Appointments
  Use Communicare appointments to book future appointments and record services provided without an appointment, for example, walk-in patients.
  - Working with the Appointment Book
    Use the Appointment Book to add sessions, book and change appointments, and check patient's in.
  - Appointment Details
    When booking an appointment, after you have selected a timeslot and the patient, the Appointment Details window is displayed.
  - Cancelling and rescheduling appointments manually
    You can cancel or reschedule one or more patients' appointments in the Appointment Book at any time before the consultation starts.
  - Cancelling appointments automatically
    In Communicare V21.1 and later, patients can automatically cancel their appointment by replying to an appointment reminder by SMS and rejecting the appointment.
  - Appointment timeslots
    A timeslot is the period in which an appointment is booked. Timeslots can be of any duration.
  - Appointment session
    An appointment session is the period of time for which a Provider and Facility are allocated to provide services. Sessions are normally divided into timeslots.
  - Appointment Session Status
    Session Status is used to indicate the condition of sessions and session templates.
  - Appointment Session Insertion
    The Session Templates List is displayed when you insert a session into the Appointment Book.
  - Patient Appointment and Service History
    From the Appointment Book or clinical record, use the Service List window to view a list of all upcoming appointments for a patient, and a patient's appointment and service history.
  - Walk-in patients
    Walk-in patients are those who arrive without an appointment. That is, they just walk in.
  - Simultaneous Check-In
    The Simultaneous Check-In window is displayed when checking in a patient who has more than one appointment today. It allows patients with multiple appointments to be efficiently managed through services with multiple providers.
  - Appointment Cancellation Reason
    Use the Appointment Cancellation Reason window to indicate a broad reason category for an appointment cancellation.
  - Online Appointment Booking
    Online appointment booking systems allow patients to find an available provider and appointment time slots 24 hours a day, without the need to interact with the health service to book an appointment.
  - Appointment Book report
    Use the Appointment Book report to print the appointments book in a format that can be used in an emergency as a paper appointments book. It is also useful when reviewing the setup of the appointments book.
  - SMS messages and reminders
    In Communicare V21.1 and later, you can send appointment reminders to patients using Telstra Health's SMS gateway (TH Notify) and a new interface.
    - Enable SMS
      To configure Communicare to send SMS with Telstra Health's SMS gateway (TH Notify), enable the module and assign system rights to user groups.
    - Send direct SMS messages
      Send SMS messages to individual patients from their biographics or clinical record.
    - SMS reminder templates
      Use SMS appointment reminder templates to compose and schedule the SMS messages that are sent to individual patients automatically, depending on appointments and other filters.
    - Send bulk SMS messages manually
      In Communicare V21.1 and later, you can manually send SMS messages to multiple recipients using Telstra Health's SMS gateway (TH Notify).
  - SMS messaging using Burst
    Set up SMS Messaging so that your health service can send SMS messages to patients using Burst.
- Transport
  Communicare offers two ways of managing transport services.

Enable SMS

To configure Communicare to send SMS with Telstra Health's SMS gateway (TH Notify), enable the module and assign system rights to user groups.

Tip: You can continue to use the existing SMS feature in Communicare V21.1 until you exhaust your Burst credit. You should then swap over to the new SMS Communications feature. If required, you can use both SMS features in parallel.

To enable SMS:

Enable the module:
1. Select File > System Parameters > System tab.
2. In the modules list, set Communications.
3. Click Save.
4. Contact Communicare Support for today's security code. In the Enter Authority Code window, enter the code and click OK.
Assign access rights:
1. Select File > User Groups.
2. In the User Group Maintenance window, select the user group that you want to allow to create and send SMS appointment reminders.
3. On the System Rights tab, set SMS Messaging.
4. Repeat steps a-c for all groups that will use SMS.
5. Click Save.

If both the existing SMS Feature module and the new Communications module are enabled, Communicare will prioritise the Communications module:

In the patient record and clinical record, when you click Send SMS, you will use the Communications module.
In the Tools menu:
- Send Bulk SMS uses the Communications module
- The following menu items use the SMS Feature module:
  - Send Batch SMS - Burst
  - SMS Top-up
  - SMS Balance

If only the Communications module is enabled:

In the patient record and clinical record, when you click Send SMS, you will use the Communications module.
In the Tools menu:
- Send Bulk SMS uses the Communications module
- All other SMS menu items are hidden

If only the SMS Feature module is enabled:

In the patient record and clinical record, when you click Send SMS, you will use the SMS Feature module
In the Tools menu:
- Send Bulk SMS uses the SMS Feature module
- All other SMS menu items use the SMS Feature module

For more information, see SMS messaging using Burst.

You can now set up your SMS templates for group SMS appointment reminders.