Reminders

Patient Reminders allow clients to configure rules to key in on appointments within a given time window to send email and SMS reminders, allowing patients to review and confirm their appointment and complete Ocean Forms related to the appointment.

These reminders may be used for both online booking appointments as well as for appointments booked within the EMR/EHR system in other ways (telephone bookings etc.). The rules can key in on many criteria including appointment type, appointment timing, provider information, and patient information.

Prior to configuring these reminders, clients must first connect and authorize Cloud Connect to the EMR/EHR system, as discussed in previous sections.

Sequence of Connections With FHIR Resources

1. Appointment Analysis

For each reminder rule configured in the Ocean Reminders section of the Ocean portal, CC attempts to fetch all of the appointments on the specified day for each provider specified in the rule.

  • GET Appointment?practitioner={providerId}&date=ge{startDateTime}&date=lt{endDateTime}

The startDateTime and endDateTime are in standard ISO date/time format and should be approximately 24 hours apart, representing the targeted day. For example, if a reminder is designed to send "2 days in advance" and the reminder is evaluating at 6 AM, the startDateTime will be approximately 48 hours after the following midnight and the endDateTime will be 72 hours after the following midnight. Note that reminders may also refer to appointments in the past (e.g., "1 day after" for post-visit satisfaction surveys).

For EACH appointment, if a Patient is specified as a Participant with reference "Patient/", Ocean proceeds to call:

  • GET Patient/{patientId}/$everything

See the operation definition for $everything in this guide for details.

2. Appointment Reminder Send Record

If a reminder rule is satisfied for a given appointment/patient, Ocean will proceed to send the reminder via email and/or SMS. Subequently CC will call:

  • GET Appointment/id to check the appointment status.
  • POST AppointmentResponse with comment "Reminder sent to patient via Ocean"

3. Appointment Reminder Confirmation by the Patient

If a patient checks their email or SMS and confirms the appointment, CC will call:

  • GET Appointment/id to check the appointment status.
  • POST AppointmentResponse with participantStatus "accepted", comment "Appointment confirmed via Ocean", appointment reference "Appointment/"; and single participant with actor reference "Patient/" and a participant type (system "http://hl7.org/fhir/ValueSet/encounter-participant-type"; code "PART"; display "Participation")
  • POST DocumentReference - Optional. Records the clinical note associated with the appointment reminder's forms, if any forms were specified.

4. Appointment Reminder Cancellation by the Patient

Patients are not permitted to cancel appointments using Ocean appointment reminders. Instead, they are instructed to contact the clinic for the request. This decision is intentional since cancellation policies vary widely between clinics.