What is Self-Book?
Self-Book aims to save the healthcare team's time by reducing the manual steps involved in booking patients into appointments.
Using Self-Book, your organisation can choose which patients require a face-to-face or telephone appointment and send these patients a unique link via text.
Invited patients will be able to choose a time slot and day that they are available and, once chosen, they are booked directly into the organisation's appointment book without the need for the patient to call the surgery 🙌
How does it work?
Firstly you'll need to select the Self-Book icon in the bottom left of your compose message page 📆
Then you need to choose whether you'd like to invite your patient to a Face-to-face or Telephone appointment.
For Telephone appointments
For Telephone appointments
Once you've chosen the Telephone option. You'll then need to select the slot type you'd like the patient to book themselves into within your appointment book. Next, you'll get a prompt to let you know that patients will be able to select a time window for their telephone appointment.
The time windows will be displayed as: 8.30am - 1.00pm and 2.00pm - 6.00pm. When you then select Add link, the link will auto-populate in the message with the following message included 👇 (Note: you can create a message template for these messages if you'd like to add other details)
For Face-to-face appointments
For Face-to-face appointments
Once you've chosen the Face-to-face option. You'll then need to select the slot type you'd like the patient to book themselves into within your appointment book. When you then select Add link, the link will auto-populate in the message with the following message included 👇 (Again you can add a message template for these messages)
Specifying a clinician
Specifying a clinician
You'll be able to specify one or more clinicians that you would like the patient to book an appointment with. If you use this option, the patient will only be able to view appointments available for the clinician(s) of your choice.
If you choose Any Clinician, we will show all available appointments with any clinician for that slot type. Read more about this feature here.
Amending appointment availability
Amending appointment availability
When sending an individual Self-Book link, you can specify the timeframe of appointments that will be visible for patients. We either search your appointment book 6 or 12 weeks in advance and previously all available appointments in this timeframe would be shown to patients.
You can now reduce the availability shown to patients, if you would like them to book within a specific timeframe. You can set the appointment availability in weeks or days, meaning if you need a patient to book an urgent appointment, you can now send a Self-Book link which will only offer appointments on the same day.
Link expiry
If you choose to reduce the appointment availability to less than 7 days, the link expiry timeframe will also reduce to match.
For example, if you wanted the patient to only book an appointment in the next 2 days, the link will now expire after 48 hours.
Scheduling self book links
You also can pair reducing the appointment availability with scheduling a Self-Book link.
For example, you may want to schedule a self-book link to send in 1 months time and ask the patient to book an appointment within 2 weeks of receiving the Self-Book link.
Allow patient to decline
Allow patient to decline
This feature in individual self-book is being slowly rolled out so may not be available to all users just yet!
You can also allow patients to decline the appointment. If they choose to decline, the chosen SNOMED code will be added to their record.
What happens next?
Invited patients will receive a text message with a unique (and one-use-only) link. Once they click on their link, they can choose a time window or time slot (depending on appointment type) and date that they are available for their appointment (up to 6 weeks (12 weeks if you have the extension enabled) in the future.
Patients are automatically booked into one of the chosen appointment slots in EMIS or SystmOne. (Note: For telephone appointments, patients are not given the exact time for the appointment, just whether the appointment is between 8:30am and 1:00pm or between 2:00pm and 6:00pm)
What will patients see?
Patients will receive a text message with their unique booking link. Once they've clicked on the link they will be prompted to enter their date of birth.
For telephone appointments, the patients will be able to choose a convenient time window for the telephone call 📞
For face-to-face appointments, the patients will be able to choose a convenient time slot for their in-person appointment 👨🏽⚕️
The patient will then receive a confirmation SMS with the appointment details
FAQs
Can I send more than one self-book link per message?
Can I send more than one self-book link per message?
No, you can only send one link per message
Can I choose multiple slot types per self-book link?
Can I choose multiple slot types per self-book link?
No, you can only choose one slot type to send.
Can I send self-book links to multiple patients at the same time?
Can I send self-book links to multiple patients at the same time?
Yes, you can! 🎉 Self-Book can also be used to invite cohorts of patients to book a face-to-face appointment. Find out more 🌟
Can I share one self-book link with multiple patients?
Can I share one self-book link with multiple patients?
No, each self-book link is auto-generated at the time the message is sent so it is unique to each patient.
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. 👉