Appointment Management

Practice Reporting

Examples

Appointment Management 

C5E1

GP-06.1-01

Session management - Create, amend, delete Session templates

Create, amend, copy and delete Session templates, each having pertinent information recorded including;

• a unique identifier or name

• type (e.g. routine surgery, ante-natal clinic)

• start time and end time OR Session duration (one can derive the other)

• Slot Type

• Slot details (e.g GP-AP-4.2-01-1 to GP-AP-4.2-01-16)

MUST

C5E1

GP-06.1-01A

Session Management - Share Session Templates

Support the sharing of Session Template(s) with other Practices using the same Solution.

MUST

C5E2

GP-APMAN-05

Session management - Assign Session templates

Assign Session templates to create a Session for

• an individual day(s) e.g. Tuesday 3rd July

• specified days of the week e.g. every day or every other Thursday

• specific days of the month e.g. first Tuesday of the month or every second Friday of the month

• a combination of numbers and days e.g. 2nd Thursday of each month

• other methods including accounting for locally defined closures, e.g. first working day of the month or every Monday except Bank Holidays

• template start date

• template end date

MUST

C5E2

GP-APMAN-03

Session Management - Create ad-hoc Session

Create ad-hoc Sessions, each having pertinent information recorded including:

• type (e.g. routine surgery, ante-natal clinic)

• start time and end time OR Session duration (one can derive the other)

• Slot details (e.g. GP-AP-4.2-01-1 to GP-AP-4.2-01-16)

MUST

C5E2

GP-06.1-03

Session management - Amend individual Session

Amend or remove an individual Session or any attribute of that Session e.g. remove a Session due to known staff leave or change the staff involved and start time

When a Session's slots are changed and their total duration exceeds the duration of the Session, it is possible to increase the duration of the Session to accommodate the Slot changes. The Session start time, end time or both can change, but the Session will adhere to constraints required by the Practice

See GP-AP-4.1-02A for further detail on rules/restrictions

MUST

C5E2

GP-06.1-04

Session management - Cancel Session

Either

• Cancel a Session - where active Appointments exist, the Appointment status for each Booking will be automatically updated to 'awaiting re-booking' or automatically re-scheduled and flagged as such

or

• Prevent cancellation of a Session (until any active Appointments have been cancelled or re-booked in another Session)

MUST

C5E3, C5E4

GP-AP-4.1-02A

Session management - Rules/restrictions

Locally define and configure rules/restrictions for Sessions and Slots, including;

• Restriction or 'blocking out' of individual or multiple Slots within a Session

• Definition of when Slots can be filled (e.g. open/any time or x hours/days prior to slot time)

• Prevention of double Booking of resources such as consulting rooms

• Resources required, including room and equipment combinations

• Override capabilities - definition of whether the rule/restriction can be overridden. Any rule/restriction to be configured to prevent override, allow override by all, or allow override by specified Practice Users i.e. constrained by user access rights

• Enabling Sessions and/or individual or multiple Appointment Slots to be made available for Booking online (See GP-SPFS-5.2.2-01A).

  • Where Slots are made available for Booking online, the Practice can configure Slots to be made available for Booking by OSAs 

• Restricting Sessions and/or individual or multiple Appointment Slots from being opened up to online Booking.

See GP-06.2-05 for requirement on preventing Appointment Bookings and GP-AP-4.2-01-15 on locally defined rules.

See Resource Management (requirements GP-03.4-02 and GP-03.5-02) for how staff details are defined.

MUST

C5E2

GP-AP-4.1-07

Session management - Amend slots

Insert additional Slots, delete unnecessary Slots and amend (by extension or contraction) Slot lengths, enabling simultaneous Appointments (only where locally defined rules/restrictions allow)

MUST

C5E1, C5E2, C5E5

GP-AP-4.1-08

Session management - Non-working days

Based on non-working days defined through GP-03.4-07 and GP-RM-1-02, indicate to Practice Users (during recording and when managing a Session) to any Sessions/Appointments that are planned to fall on such a day e.g.:

• Closed for bank holiday or staff training

• A specific clinician is on annual leave

A Practice User attempting to book an Appointment on that day/time can see the fact that the resource is not available - locally defined rules/restrictions would govern whether the Appointment can then still be booked despite the lack of resource.

MUST

C5E5

GP-06.2-04

Appointment management - Book Appointment

Book an Appointment:

• for any Patient registered or not yet registered with the Practice

• using multiple adjacent Slots/Slots in close proximity within a single process e.g. search for free Slots to book an Appointment with a nurse followed shortly after by an Appointment with a GP

MUST

C5E5

GP-AP-4.4-02

Appointment Management - Book multiple

Book multiple Appointments (adjacent or otherwise) for a Patient in a single transaction

MUST

C5E5

GP-AP-4.4-03

Appointment Management - Book varying duration

Book Appointments of varying duration by Booking part of a Slot or 'merging' adjacent Slots, ensuring the Practice User is alerted of any subsequent impact on other booked Appointments (or merge action is prevented, dependent on locally defined rules/restrictions)

MUST

C5E5

GP-AP-4.4-04

Appointment Management - Book retrospectively

Book Appointments retrospectively (subject to locally defined rules/restrictions) with an indication that the Appointment was a retrospective Booking.

MUST

C5E5

GP-AP-4.4-05

Appointment Management - Book recurring

Book recurring Appointments i.e. schedule multiple Appointments with fixed or variable gaps between Appointments

MUST

C5E5

GP-AP-4.4-06

Appointment Management - Patient Alerts

Indicate to the Practice User any Patient Alert(s) (see PIM11) at any stage of the Appointment Booking, Appointment management or future/subsequent view of the 'calendar'.

Patient Alerts will be displayed only to users that have appropriate access rights to that information.

MUST

C5E5

GP-AP-4.4-07

Appointment Management - Appointments contravening rules/restrictions

Identify booked Appointments that contravene pre-defined rules i.e. where override capabilities have been utilised - Indicate to the Practice User of any conflict prior to / at the time the Appointment is being managed.

See GP-AP-4.1-02A for further detail on rules/restrictions

may

C5E5

GP-AP-4.4-08

Appointment Management - Link 

Link multiple Appointments (whether concurrent or otherwise).

Where linked, management of one Appointment can result in the need to manage the linked Appointment(s):

• Display linked Appointments to the user

• Enable the user to manage linked Appointments.

may

C5E5

GP-AP-4.4-09

Appointment Management - Cancel 

Cancel a Patient's Appointment (and automatically update the Slot status) - indicate to the Practice User of any linked/future Appointments the Patient has

MUST

C5E5

GP-AP-4.4-10

Appointment Management - Reschedule 

Reschedule a Patient's Appointment (automatically updating the status of both previous and newly booked Slots) - highlighting to a Practice User any linked/future Appointments the Patient has

MUST

C5E5

GP-AP-4.4-11

Appointment Management - Retrospective management

Allow retrospective management of Appointments, and update of certain Appointment information - alerting the Practice User that the activity they are performing is retrograde.

MUST

C5E5

GP-AP-4.4-12.1

Appointment Management - Manually mark as DNA

Manually update the status of an Appointment to DNA (Did Not Attend)

MUST

C5E5

GP-AP-4.4-12.2

Appointment Management - Automatically mark as DNA

When the status of an Appointment is not changed within a set period of its start time it is automatically set to DNA. The default duration of the set period is 10 minutes and it can be configured to the needs of the Practice.

MUST

C5E5

GP-AP-4.4-14

Appointment Management - Appointment communication

Confirm Booking, rescheduling, cancelling or DNA of an Appointment by creation of a communication, according to Patient preferences (see COM1) to be sent automatically upon completion of that activity i.e. automatic Patient communication generation configurable to define trigger and method (print letter, email or SMS message)

MUST

C5E5

GP-AP-4.4-15

Appointment Management - Manual communication generation

Manual Patient communication generation from an Appointment - the ability to manually produce a letter, email or text message.

MUST

C5E5

GP-AP-4.4-16

Appointment Management - Non-time bound

Accommodate requests for and manage outcome of non-time bound Appointments - although such Appointments do not have a start time at the point of the request, other dates/times will still be recorded (including the time of request) and the start and/or end time can be recorded retrospectively. Examples of non-time bound Appointments include, but are not limited to:

• Call-backs (need to telephone a Patient to triage their Appointment)

• Home visits

• Unscheduled Appointments (unplanned Appointments where Patients have to sit and wait to be seen or be assigned an order to be seen by e.g. on first come first served basis

MUST

C5E2

GP-06.2-01

Appointment management - View Sessions

View forthcoming and historical Sessions in a calendar/diary view:

• with Patients displayed

• with Patient details suppressed (to enable Patient viewing of screen information)

• two or more concurrent Sessions

• with time periods

• with ability to print out

MUST

C5E5

GP-06.2-02

Appointment management - Retrieve Appointments

Retrieve available Appointments by browsing/searching/filtering on any combination of the following fields:

• date/date range

• day (e.g. Wed or Fri)

• time (range or period, e.g. am, pm, eve)

• duration

• multiple consecutive/adjacent slots

• session type

• location

• slot type

• slot status

• staff detail (name, role (grade/level and function/department), languages spoken or gender - any aspect of these characteristics and/or multiple instances of staff to be searchable e.g. Urdu-speaking midwife, a female GP and Health Care Assistant together)

• booking information

• locally defined rules/restrictions

• words within the reason fields (Practice defined and free-text notes)

A specific set of search criteria can be saved with a user-defined name for later re-use by Practice Users.

See GP-AP-4.2-01-6 for detail on Booking information

See GP-AP-4.1-02A for further detail on rules/restrictions

MUST

C5E5

GP-APMAN-10

Appointment management - Retrieve Appointments

Retrieve available Appointments by browsing/searching/filtering by 'National’ Slot Type Category (see GP-APMAN-06).

MAY

C5E5

GP-06.2-05

Appointment management - Prevent Appointment Booking

Prevent Appointment Booking where:

• Appointment Slot status is not yet available as per Slot availability. See GP-AP-4.2-01-5.

• Session or individual Slot is cancelled

• Where the type of Appointment being requested or the requesting patient is not appropriate for the Slot Type or Session Type, indicate that to the user.

For rules on Session management see: GP-AP-4.1-02A

MUST

C5E5

GP-APMAN-04

Concurrent Appointments Warning

Warn during Appointment Booking when Patient already has a concurrent Appointment (active Appointment exists for the Patient at a time that fully or partially overlaps with this Appointment Slot)

MUST

C5E5

GP-06.2-10

Appointment management - Override prevented Appointment Booking

Allow users to proceed with an Appointment Booking that would otherwise be prevented where:

• The user is empowered to override prevented Appointment Booking

MUST

C5E5

GP-06.2-10A

Appointment management - Add reason for overriding a prevented Appointment Booking

Allow users to add a reason for overriding a prevented Appointment Booking

MUST

C5E5

GP-06.2-06

Appointment management - Update Appointment

Update an Appointment status for a booked Appointment, including the following:

• Attended / completed

• Cancelled - updating this Appointment status will automatically update the Slot status

• Awaiting re-booking / re-scheduling (e.g. Session cancelled due to staff illness, Appointment requires rearrangement)

• DNA'd (Did Not Attend) - entering the relevant Clinical Term to record the appropriate type of DNA into the Patient Record

For further information on Clinical Terms see Data Standards

MUST

C5E5

GP-06.2-07

Appointment management - Add free text to Appointment

Add free text notes to an Appointment (at the time of Booking or subsequently)

MUST

C5E5

GP-06.2-08

Appointment management - Automatic Appointment reminder

Automatically generate an Appointment reminder within a Practice-specified time period prior to an Appointment (using each Patient's Appointment reminder preference details - see COM1)

MUST

C5E5

GP-06.2-09

Appointment management - View Sessions for staff

View Sessions that can be exported, including but not limited to the following formats:

• CSV

• PDF

Select Sessions for a Staff Member(s) for a user specified date range - allowing the inclusion or exclusion of notes associated to the Slots/Appointments.

MUST

C5E4

GP-PPFS-3.3-03

Service Configuration - Online Appointments

Enable the Practice to define the maximum number of future Appointments that can be booked for a Patient via Appointments Management - Citizen.

MUST

C5E4

GP-PPFS-3.3-03A

Service Configuration - Appointments for OSAs

For Appointments for OSAs (See GP-PPFS-3.2-05A), a separate configuration item is required to allow Practices to define a maximum number of Appointments booked by an OSA (this can be per Patient or at the level of the OSA, dependent on the functionality provided).

MUST

C5E5

GP-AP-4.2-01-1

Slot/Appointment details - Characteristics - Category

Record Appointment category - clinical/administrative/virtual/reminder/message to cover scheduling of staff time for a task

MUST

C5E5

GP-AP-4.2-01-2

Slot/Appointment details - Characteristics - Reason for Appointment

Record Appointment reason

• reason to be selected from a user defined selection (routine, minor surgery, travel advice etc. - and default to the Slot Type where applicable)

• free-text reason also required to enable Patient and/or staff to give more detail (this will display when and by whom any such information was recorded) and this detail is added to the Patient Record.

Where information is retrievable from the Solution, it will not be re-keyed;

See GP-06.1-01 for Session templates

MUST

C5E5

GP-AP-4.2-01-3

Slot/Appointment details - Characteristics - Date

Record Appointment date (date of the Slot/Appointment - dates of Booking and amendment to also be recorded)

Where information is retrievable from the Solution, it will not be re-keyed;

See GP-06.1-01 for Session templates

MUST

C5E5

GP-AP-4.2-01-4

Slot/Appointment details - Characteristics - Start/end time

Record Appointment start time and end time/duration

Where information is retrievable from the Solution, it will not be re-keyed;

See GP-06.1-01 for Session templates

MUST

C5E5

GP-AP-4.2-01-5 

Slot/Appointment details - Characteristics - Slot status

Record Appointment Slot status (whether the Slot is available, booked or withdrawn etc.). Slot status to default to available.

Where information is retrievable from the Solution, it will not be re-keyed;