I really like the CMS portal concept and want to start developing a solution for my practice on it. What I really want however is a booking feature along with the rest of what has been done already. On line booking has been a major feature of my practice and patients love it.
I have been using online booking for two years using a service called Lattiss which is the only one I found that will do BAA’s. It has been good but not sufficient. I am trying to use ZH Healthcare’s system. I like its forms feature. But for scheduling, it does not allow a patient to select the service for which they are booking. And, the date picker is difficult to use and limited in its view. That is a little frustrating on my end. I run nearly fully booked for 60 days out and so people need to be able to see days with open slots over the course of 60 days or so. The ZH portal does not do this very well either. I think I need to develop my own.
I understand that we do not want users to have access to OpenEMR database directly. I am wondering about using a WP Appointment plugin within the CMS patient portal. Or using a modification of the script “booked” at http://www.bookedscheduler.com/. Data from this could be grabbed by OpenEMR through an ICS file. I have done some experiments with this it looks possible. If appointments are handled outside of OpenEMR with a database of just Names, web addresses, phone numbers, and appointment types and times would this be safe enough?
For development–What I see as necessary for booking in my world is the following:
First: A menu of providers.
Second: An editable and expandable menu of options to select for services with differing time perimeters and buffers between appointments for paperwork. For example:
Initial Evaluation
Follow up
etc.
Third: A date picker for available times given the service selected within a 60 day range for example.
Fourth: EMAIL and SMS reminders.
Fifth: A waiting list
Sixth: It needs to be mobile friendly.
What would also be cool is to have copays made at the time of booking.
So, I want to dig into this but need to know if my vision is off.
You absolutely do not want to publish anything that could give any clue as to a patient’s identity.
Don’t give patients anything complex. They’ll screw it up. Trust me on this.
Most modern WordPress themes are somewhat mobile friendly. Of course you’ll want to make sure any chosen appointment add-on works well with it in that way.
Probably you want something in the WP database that stores the available appointment slots along with relevant attributes (provider, visit category, etc.). This can be updated by OpenEMR each time an appointment is booked.
There will need to be a way in OpenEMR to specify which appointment slots are available to the portal. Many practices will want to restrict that.
I’d say the first step is to find an open source appointment calendar plugin that’s close to what you want, and then identify what will have to be changed to meet your needs. Development would include enhancing the CMS Portal plug-in to work with the calendaring plugin’s database, and I’ll need to work with you on that.
“You absolutely do not want to publish anything that could give any clue as to a patient’s identity.”
Where may I be risking that? Currently with the CMS portal individuals register with their identity. It is not publishable to the public however. I suppose this is what you mean. The calendar would only need to show whether a slot is booked or open with no identifying data like name or purpose of appointment. I suppose your are referring to this as well? That is reasonable.
If appointments are handled outside of OpenEMR with a database of just Names, web addresses, phone numbers, and appointment types and times would this be safe enough?
I wasn’t sure what that meant, but that’s what it was about. Sorry for any confusion.