Working with the Appointment Book

Use the Appointment Book to add sessions, book and change appointments, and check patient's in.

To open the Appointment Book, in the main toolbar, click Appointments Book buttonAppointments Book.

Sessions

Sessions with a type of Weekly are inserted automatically. As you open up booking days in the future, you may need to add new sessions into which you can book appointments, or you may need to add additional sessions at any time.

You can view only those appointment sessions created from templates with an Encounter Program to which you have access. Similarly, when adding Appointment sessions, only templates with Encounter Programs you have access to, or no Encounter Program specified, are available. For more information, see Appointment Session Templates.

You can insert a session with a type of Manual for any day. Weekly sessions can be inserted manually only for the day of the week for which they have been defined.

To insert a session into the appointment book:
  1. In the Appointment Book, click Insert session iconInsert.
  2. In the Session Templates List, select the session you want to insert.
  3. Click Select iconOK.
The session is added to the Appointment Book unless it was not possible to insert the session because of overlaps between Providers or Facilities and so on. Repeat this process for all sessions that you want to add, including any walk-in sessions.

You can now add appointments.

Tip:
For walk-in sessions, add the patients to the Service Recording window was they arrive. For more information, see Adding walk-in patients to a service.

If your provider needs time set aside without any patient bookings, that is not already included as a provider planned absence, select a timeslot and click Reserve buttonReserve. If the provider no longer needs this time set aside, select the reserved timeslot and click Unreserve buttonUnreserve.

If you need to cancel a session, or part of a session:
  1. In the Appointment Book, reschedule any appointments. See Cancelling and rescheduling appointments manually .
  2. If you are cancelling part of a session, select the first appointment you want to cancel and click Split session buttonSplit and in the Confirm window, click OK.
  3. In the Appointment Book, click in the part of the session or the session that you want to cancel and click Cancel session buttonCancel Session.
  4. In the Session Cancellation window, type session and click Select iconOK.

The session or part of session is removed from the appointment book.

Booking appointments

The appointment book provides a one-day view. The sessions for a provider are listed in a single column. Each cell in the column is a single appointment timeslot. Different providers may have different length appointments, so times may not be aligned across the grid.
Example appointment book showing blank appointment slots of different lengths for two different providers

In this example, Dr Benbrow's appointments are 15 minutes long, while Dr Ellison's appointments are 30 minutes long. The time of the appointment and its length are displayed in the blue banner for each timeslot.

Tip:
Appointment timeslots during public holidays and planned absences are not displayed. Instead, a single cell is displayed giving details of the holiday or absence so that you can see why no appointments are available and when a provider will be back from leave.
To book an appointment:
  1. In the Appointment Book, if you have multiple sites, in the Filter Place & Mode pane, select a mode and place. This is important when multiple sites or separate waiting rooms are used. If you select an Administrative Encounter Place, appointments at all Service Encounter Places that belong to it are displayed.
  2. If your health service books appointments from more than one workstation, to update your display to the latest appointment details, click Refresh buttonRefresh or press F5.
  3. Search for a free appointment slot:
    • To search for a free appointment for today or a specific day, in the View Date & Status pane, select Free Appointments. The Appointment Book displays only free appointment timeslots.
      Free Appointments today selected
    • If there are no appointments available today, or for the selected date, to search for the next available appointment:
      1. In the Free Appointment Search pane, select which providers (all, female or male) and the type of appointment the patient requires.
        Next Available Free Appointment options
      2. Click Go to the first day with available appointments buttonPlay to go to the first day with available appointments.
      3. If there are no suitable appointments on that day, click Go to the next day with available appointments buttonForward to go to the next day with available appointments or Go to the prior day with available appointments buttonBack to go to a previous day with available appointments.
    Tip:
    To return to today's appointments, click Today's appointments buttonToday.
  4. If the patient requires a double appointment, select two adjacent timeslots and click Merge buttonMerge.
    Tip:
    If you later need to make this timeslot two single appointments again, select it and click Unmerge buttonUnmerge.
  5. Select a free appointment timeslot and click Book selected appointment buttonBook or press CTRL+Enter.
  6. In the Select patient to book appointment window (Patient search), enter the name of the patient for whom you're booking, select that patient in the list and click Select iconSelect Patient.
    If you are booking for a new patient, first search for any existing record, then click New Patient.
  7. The appointment is summarised in the Appointment Details window. Complete any extra booking information and click Select iconSave.
    For more information, see Appointment Details.
The selected patient is booked into the appointment timeslot.

Checking a patient in

In the Appointment Book, you can manage the appointment lifecycle: you can check in a patient when they arrive for their appointment and then monitor the progress of that patient through their appointment.
Example appointment lifecycle
In this example:
  • Appointment booked iconVera's appointment is booked but she has not yet arrived
  • Checked in iconMartin is checked in and is waiting
  • Service in progress iconBrian is seeing a provider (service in progress)
  • Appointment complete iconTheresa has seen a provider and the service finished
Having already booked an appointment, to check a patient in when they arrive:
  1. In the appointment book, select the patient.
  2. Click Check in buttonCheck In.
  3. In the Service Record window, the date and time of arrival are automatically listed. Record any other information as required, including setting the priority. For more information, see Service Record - Detail.
  4. Click Select iconSave.

The patient's status is changed to Checked in iconWaiting.

The other appointment status changes occur automatically when the service is started from the service record and the clinical record is closed.

To open a patient's biographic information from the appointment book, select the patient's appointment and click Biographics buttonBiographics.

To view a list of all upcoming appointments for a patient, click Services buttonServices and search for the patient. Deselect Future Only to view all appointments.

To take payment when a service is finished and the patient returns to reception, in the Service Recording window, double-click a patient and select Edit Service Details.