Communications Annexe - SystmOne : Ardens

Last review date 03/02/2023

SystmOne has a feature called the 'Communications Annexe' which streamlines sending SMS, Email and Airmid notifications to patients from one easily accessible window.

In order to start using this feature whilst in a patient record you can add a button to customise your toolbar, add it to your F12 favourites or just search for it in the bottom left of SystmOne. A link to this has also now been added onto the resource pages of all of the Ardens templates.

With the 'Communications Annexe' window open you can instantly see how useful this functionality is. This window can be resized and moved onto another monitor screen or to one side while you still have the ability to navigate around the patient record.

You can easily see if the patient has an email address, mobile number or Airmid account and which of these have been verified. You can also see what the patients preferred contact method is and whether they have consented to SMS.

Questionnaires can be attached for the patient to complete and there is a tick box to allow patients to reply which by default is not ticked.

If you need to add or amend contact details or preferred contact method this can be easily achieved by clicking on the telephone symbol.

Message Presets

Practices have the option to configure organisation presets or user presets by using these buttons.

There are a number of merge fields that can be added to the message preset.

Communications from a List

This can also be used to send multiple messages from a report or from an appointment rota. This new option has been added to the right-click actions menu.

From a list, you are presented with a slightly different message window. From here you can specify to use the patients preferred contact method or you can leave it un-ticked and select a specific message format i.e SMS.

Resource Pages of Templates

All templates that have a resources page now have a new 'Send Message' link to the 'Communications Annexe'.

Sending a link to a Questionnaire

You can send a patient a link to complete a questionnaire regardless of whether the patient uses Airmid or SystmOnline. There is now an option to search for and add a link to a questionnaire.

An SMS or email is sent to the patient with a link to open the questionnaire as below;

The patient is taken to an identification validation screen where they simply need to enter their data of birth.

Once correctly identified, the patient can then complete the questionnaire.

If there is a score, the patient can calculate the score and submit their answers.

Once submitted, this comes through to the practice as a task which requires actioning.

You are then given the opportunity to review what data is going to be added to the patient record and you can deselect items if appropriate.

The submitted data can be seen in the journal as below.

Sending a link to a Letter or Attachment

You can now send a patient a link to a letter saved in 'Communications & Letters' or an attachment saved in 'Record Attachments' via the Communication Annexe. This can also be done from any applicable view in a template.

Right click on the letter/attachment you wish to send and select 'Send via Communications Annexe'