What is Real-Time Appointment Status Syncing?
As discussed on our EMR Integration webpage, without CHIME, most clinics use the EMR scheduling screen to monitor and communicate the status of individual appointments. For example, clinics that use OSCAR oftentimes change the status of the appointment to say that patients have arrived, or are in the room, etc. Typically, with CHIME, this information is managed within CHIME instead.
There may be specific situations where updating the appointment status within the EMR is highly desired, for any of these three reasons:
to manually check patients in via the EMR (instead of CHIME)
to use a third-party kiosk (instead of the CHIME kiosk)
to view the status of patients within the EMR (instead of CHIME)
What we are referring to when we talk about real-time appointment status syncing is essentially:
Pulling changes made in the EMR into CHIME in real-time
Pushing changes made in CHIME into the EMR in real-time
Notably, this is distinguished from functionality where information is imported from the EMR into CHIME in “near real-time” (e.g. every 15, 30, or 60 minutes). Near real-time functionality has mostly to do with updating the list of scheduled appointments within CHIME.
Real-time is referring to situations where the pull or push happens say, every 30 seconds or less, so essentially instantaneously for the purpose of real world clinics.
What are the specific scenarios, why is it useful, and how is it configured?
Pulling changes made in the EMR into CHIME in real-time
If an appointment has its status updated to represent the patient has “arrived”, the corresponding batch import within CHIME is also “checked in”.
Receptionists can check in patients within only the EMR
Third-party self check in kiosks that only affect the EMR directly can be used
Updating Telus PS Suite Appointment Status On Visit Complete
When a visit is completed in CHIME, we can update the status in PS to something configurable (e.g. “Finished”)
When a visit is checked in within CHIME, we can update the status in PS to something configurable (e.g. “Arrived”)
When a visit is checked in within TELUS PS (“Arrived”), the patient can be automatically checked in within CHIME as well
All three of these are optional aspects of the Telus PS integration, in addition to the “Core integration” which is syncing the appointment schedule from Telus PS into CHIME.
Pushing changes made in CHIME into the EMR in real-time
When a batch import is checked in
the corresponding appointment within the EMR has its status also updated:
When a visit in CHIME is roomed:
the corresponding appointment within the EMR has its status also updated.
the corresponding appointment within the EMR has the room number appended to its reason for visit
When a visit in CHIME is finished:
the corresponding appointment within the EMR has its status also updated.
