What is the best way to set up appointment requests within a medical patient portal?

Question

I am a patient portal administrator for OB/GYN medical practices within a group I work for.  We are having an issue with Appointment Requests.  The way it is set up now is the patient may only request Annual appointments (Well Woman Appts).  We would like to have them be able to request other types of appointments but are unsure if it would work.  For example, if they try to request a "Problem Visit", it may be urgent but we don't check the portal messages every minute.  We have disclaimers stating it may take up to 24 hours to respond, but patients don't always read everything written on the screen and if they don't see that, we may be held liable for any harm caused to the patient, due to not responding quickly.  I am curious if there is anyone out there who works with a patient portal and can offer advice on how their practice utilizes their appointment requests on a patient portal.  ANY kind of advice on how it is handled would be helpful as we have a very large group and the office managers are eager to resolve this problem.

Also, even though we only allow for Annual appts to be requested, patients still request other kinds of appointments but we deny them through the portal and ask the patient to call us to make the appt.  There are so many different kinds of problem visits that can occur, and we don't know how to set up the portal to make it very clear on what kind of appointment they want.  Of course there is a place for them to free-type, but for problem issues, they should be calling us instead of messaging the practice through the portal.  Unfortunately we can't prevent that but if we had a better way of requesting appts, we are hoping it would remedy the "problem visit" issue we are having.

? · Accepted Answer

This isn't exactly a health question, more IT, but that's actually what I do.

The closest thing to this is the IT Trouble Ticket system, which your own tech support area or consultancy probably has. What they do is allow the user to select from various categories of need for help, not appointments. The categories are sort of like your Well Woman, Immediate Emergency, Painful Situation, Advice Needed -- something like that. The requests are accompanied by some sort of description, and a contact number so you can get back to them, which you probably have already.

When the records are saved in the database, the software shows the service department what is in the work queue, and you can then tackle them. It is much more efficient to use these trouble tickets than to wait for a phone call, plus you have no idea how hard it is to get a phone call through your office phone tree! (Try it sometime.) The tech support area monitors these tickets closely, as there is a service level agreement or some such thing internally where there is a promise of rapid service for emergencies. You can pop up a disclaimer when they save the record, depending on the type of request.

The work queue is really just a set of queries for each category -- with the Annual appointments going where they go now, and the more critical areas going where they need to go, possibly the triage nurse or whatever you have to screen calls.

? · Answer

Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009 
Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 
spice work 4.0
One of the new features of Spiceworks 4.0 is a totally revamped User Portal. Now you have complete control over what is displayed to your users. You can change colors, add images, create your own specialized messages, attach articles that you write, and more. You can configure the new User Portal to your liking and here's how.

NOTE: If you are trying to set up the Multi-Site Help Desk feature found in Spiceworks 5.0 and above, you'll need to set up each User Portal at the remote sites before turning that site into a Remote Collector. Instructions can be found here: http://community.spiceworks.com/help/IT_Help_Desk_Overview#Multiple



1. 


Select "View & Design Portal"

Select "User Portal" from the Help Desk drop-down menu from the navigation bar at the top of the screen. On the page that opens, select "Design the User Portal."
 




2. 


Set Your Preferences For The User Portal Look

Click "Preferences" in the top right corner of the User Portal. This will open a section that allows you to change the look of the User Portal. You can change the following:
 * Choose whether you want your boxes to have borders 
* Select the color scheme you want 
* Upload an image to be displayed in the portal 
* Set a name for the User Portal
 




3. 


Add & Remove Content

You can choose what content is displayed by adding and removing content. Remove current content by clicking the "Remove" link in the content box. Add new content by clicking the "add content to page" drop-down menu and selecting an existing content type or creating a new type.

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What is the best way to set up appointment requests within a medical patient portal?

2 Answers