With the secure messaging function, patients and healthcare professionals can communicate with each other asynchronously, i.e. at different times. Messaging works in a similar way to emails, but with secure authentication.
A message conversation can be initiated by both healthcare professionals and patients and can be used, for example, to send forms, test results or other medical information to the patient. It can also function as an additional communication channel between healthcare professionals and patients for ongoing treatment.
You can manage whether messages can be initiated by patients and/or healthcare professionals by going to Settings under the category Messages from the main menu to the left.
6.1 Activate healthcare professional initiated conversations
If a clinic works with healthcare-initiated messaging, a healthcare professional can start a message conversation and write the first message to a patient.
To configure conversations initiated by a healthcare professional, follow these steps.
- If you want your healthcare professionals to be able to initiate contact with your patients via messages, check the Activated checkbox.
- If you want to remove the option for healthcare professionals to initiate a message conversation, uncheck the box and click Save.
6.2 Configure accessibility
Under Accessibility, you can specify whether every healthcare professional in the clinic can write messages to patients or whether certain healthcare professionals are able to do so.
To configure who can send healthcare provider-initiated messages, follow these steps.
- If you want all healthcare professionals to be able to send messages, check the Accessible for all healthcare professionals box.
- If you want only specific healthcare professionals to be able to send messages, uncheck the box. You can now find and select the healthcare professionals who will have access to the feature. When you have added all the healthcare professionals with access to the feature, click Save.
6.3 Patient-initiated messages
If your clinic is working with patient-initiated message conversations, patients have the option to send the first message in a conversation.
To configure conversations initiated by patients, follow these steps.
- If you want your patients to be able to initiate a message conversation with your clinic, check the Activated box in the Conversations initiated by patient widget box.
- If you want all healthcare professionals to be able to respond to patient-initiated conversations, click on the Accessible for all healthcare professionals box and then click on Save.
- If you want specific healthcare professionals to be able to respond to patient-initiated conversations, leave the box unchecked and search for the healthcare professionals you want to grant access to. When all of them have been selected, click Save.
- Finally, you need to create and/or activate the button which will be displayed on the home page of your clinic's patient app/web interface. To create and/or activate a button that leads to New message, go to go to your clinic under the category Patient interface from the sidebar menu to the left. Read more detailed instructions on how to create and activate a button in 10 Customise the patient interface.
When all of the steps above are completed, the patient interface will change, and the button leading to the message conversation will be added to the menu in the patient app and web.
6.4 Message overview
To get an overview of all the ongoing conversations in a clinic, click on Overview under the category Messages from the main menu to the left.
In this overview, you can, for example, display which date a conversation between a healthcare professional and a patient started and how long it has been since the healthcare practitioner last responded.
