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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 Messaging) and a new interface.

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.
  - 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 Messaging) and a new interface.
    - Enable SMS
      To configure Communicare to send SMS with Telstra Health's SMS gateway (TH Messaging), 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 Messaging).
    - SMS replies
      Patients can reply to an SMS and depending on the configuration of your system, confirm their appointment or cancel it automatically.
    - SMS Batch Reports
      You can add new local SMS batch reports to be used to send SMS messages to patients as required. Either request a new custom SMS batch report from Communicare or create it yourself.
  - 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.

SMS Messages and Reminders

In Communicare V21.1 and later, you can send appointment reminders to patients using Telstra Health's SMS gateway (TH Messaging) and a new interface.

Note: A standard activation fee and additional charges apply. For more information, contact Communicare Support.

Send SMS messages or reminders directly to individual patients from their biographics or clinical record, or SMS multiple patients automatically or manually.

Patient Privacy

All sites using SMS must be aware of the current direct marketing and privacy laws.

Users must opt in to receive SMS messages.
Users can opt out at any time to stop receiving SMS messages.
Tip: If patients do opt out, on Patient Biographics > Personal tab, from the Preferred Contact list, select No Contact.
Ensure that you document and manage these requirements.

For more information, see Office of the Australian Information Commissioner.

15 March 2024