Accurx Appointment Reminders is part of Accurx Plus - a premium tier of Accurx Desktop. Learn more about Accurx Plus, including how to get access here.
Accurx Appointment Reminders allows you to set up automated messages to be sent to patients to remind them about their upcoming appointments. You can get an overview of how the product works here first if you'd like!
Accessing Appointment Reminders
Note: Only users who have admin access will be able to create and amend appointment reminders. Find out how to make other users admins here.
From your Accurx toolbar, click on the settings icon and select 'Settings', then you'll be taken to your Settings page where you can select Appointments on the left-hand side, then Manage Reminders, and click "Create New Reminder" as shown below π
Setting up a new Reminder
1) Choose which Site Locations the reminder should apply to
If your organisation holds appointments at different sites, you can choose which site locations you want the reminders to apply to.
2) Choose which slots your reminder should apply to
Click "Select your slot types", and you will see a dropdown of slot types. These are pulled directly from your appointment book. You can select as many slots as you'd like! π
β οΈ Note: make sure any slot types selected are for appointments that can always have a reminder message no matter where the slot is in the appointment book.
For SystmOne organisations with Shared Admin: if you can access the appointment books of other separate organisations and you don't want to set up appointment reminders for those organisations, you will need to ensure you don't use the same slot types as those organisations.
If the slot type you'd like isn't appearing, make sure a patient is booked for that slot type in the next 7 days.β οΈ
3) Select whether the appointment reminder is for Telephone or Face-to-face appointments, and choose how you would like to display the time to patients.
Click your preferred reminder type and how you would like to display the appointment time to the patient.
You can choose from:
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βExact time β Displays the specific appointment time to the patient.
Two-hour window β Displays a time window starting 1 hour before and ending 1 hour after the appointment start time.
Time windows - Displays a time window of 8:00 to 13:00 and 13:00 to 18:30.
Entire Day - Displays a time window of 8:00 to 18:30.
βοΈ Telephone appointment reminders will include the date and the time of the patient's appointment. (The time will depend on how you have chosen to display the appointment time to patients)
π©Ί Face-to-Face appointment reminders will include the date and time of the patient's appointment and, if your organisation has more than one site, the location of the appointment. (The time will depend on how you have chosen to display the appointment time to patients)
4) If appropriate, edit part of the text message that is sent to the patients
Part of the text can't be edited (the part in light grey) because it automatically populates the date and time of a patient's unique appointment.
You also can't edit the instructions for how the patient can cancel. A unique link that a patient can use to amend their appointment will be autogenerated here.
Where it says "Add an additional message to the reminder", you can add text if you'd like. For example, you could add information about your arrival policy.
π‘ Tip: You can set up separate reminders for different slot types and add in custom messages here. For example, if you have a specific slot type for baby immunisations, you can set up a specific appointment reminder for this slot type and add in a message to remind them to bring their red book. You can set up as many specific reminder messages as you'd like! π‘
Remember that every patient who has an appointment for the selected slot type(s) will be sent the same message, so do keep the content relatively generic.
5) Choose when you want to send reminders
By default, reminders will be sent 24 hours before the appointment. You can also choose to send additional reminders, 3 working days and 1 week before the appointment.
6) Choose what changes patients can make to their appointment
You can control which changes the patient can make to their appointment using the link in the reminder.
7) Choose whether you'd like to send a post-appointment message
You can set up a post-appointment message that will be sent 24 hours after the appointment time, for example, for Friends and Family Test responses.
8) Set the reminder live
Once you're ready to do, click "Set reminder live" and your reminder will start to send to patients who are booked into the slot types selected! π
Your reminder will run in the background and continue sending to all patients booked into the specific slot types until you delete it.
Editing or Deleting the Reminder
If you'd like to stop a reminder from sending or edit the reminder, find the Reminder from your "Manage reminders" dashboard, and click "Edit" as shown below π
If you would like to delete the reminder, you can click "Delete".
When do appointment reminders send?
24 working hours before the patient's appointment (e.g., if the patient's appointment is on Tuesday at 10:30am, they will receive their appointment reminder on Monday at 10:30am).
Please note: If a patient is booked within 24 hours of the appointment time, a reminder will be sent to the patient if it has already been set up in Accurx. We search the appointment book for newly booked appointments every 2 hoursπ
We also have a feature to send appointment reminders 1 week and/or 3 days before, if the option is selected. This is not checked during initial setup and must be manually selected to enable it. π We have to detect the appointment 3 days or 7 days respectively before the appointment start time, otherwise we won't schedule a message.
Can I test the system myself first?
Can I test the system myself first?
Yes! You can do so by creating a test slot in your appointment book and booking a test patient with your mobile number registered. If you'd like to test the appointment reminder system in this way, do the following things:
Create a test patient with an NHS number and a mobile number (ideally your own). If you don't have a test patient with an NHS number, you can use this tool to generate one and add it to your test patient.
Create a test slot type that doesn't have other real patients booked into it
Add the test slot into your appointment book for tomorrow, and book the test patient into it
Set up your test appointment reminder following the steps above.
You should receive a test appointment reminder text message around 24 hours before the patient's test. It may take a bit of time for the system to pick up the appointment. Please allow 1-1.5 hours after setting up the appointment reminder to receive the test text if the appointment is within 24 hours.
How do we pull patient mobile numbers?
How do we pull patient mobile numbers?
We fetch the mobile number stored in the EPR (Electronic Patient Record - EMIS, SystmOne, Vision, etc) and confirm if the patient consented to receiving SMS text messages. If no number is stored, the reminder will not be sent. Patients with a declined consent code in their records will not receive reminders.
For more information, please see our article here.
What happens if I update the slot type name or site location in the medical record?
What happens if I update the slot type name or site location in the medical record?
If you change the slot type name in the appointment book, you will need to update it in the appointment reminder settings as well. For example, if you changed the slot type name from 'Routine GP' to 'Routine GP - Face to Face'.
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The Accurx system won't pick up this change in slot type name automatically; you'll need to go into your Appointment Reminders locations and add the new slot type. If this isn't done, then we will continue to look for appointments in the old slot type, and Appointment Reminders won't be sent.
The same logic applies to updating the site location names in the appointment book.
Note β οΈ It may take 24 hours for us to recognise the new slot type name and show it in the drop-down.
How do Appointment Reminders send via the NHS App?
How do Appointment Reminders send via the NHS App?
All appointment reminders will now go via the NHS App (For primary care organisations).
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ο»ΏThe fallback time for NHS app messages is 24 hours (or 3 hours for the 24-hour reminder message). If the patient does not read the message in their NHS App within this timeframe, an SMS message will be sent to them.
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βNote: an SMS will be sent automatically instead of using the NHS app if the patient does not have the app installed or has notifications turned off.
Note: Appointment Reminders does not integrate with the NHS Wales App.
Can appointment cancellations be auto-filed to patient records?
Can appointment cancellations be auto-filed to patient records?
No, we've received a lot of feedback from clinicians that they struggle to find clinically relevant information when reviewing a patient's medical record. You can see an audit trail of all sent reminders by clicking on the Settings icon on the toolbar, followed by Appointment Reminders >> All Sent Reminders
If you still have any questions or concerns, feel free to chat with us using the green message bubble in the bottom right-hand corner of this page. π
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