dswillia2 wrote on Tuesday, May 31, 2005:
Does OpenEMR have the ability to print reminder notifications to my users? I currently use Medical Manager and print reminds 2 months and 10 days before a schedules appointment.
Regards
sunsetsystems wrote on Tuesday, May 31, 2005:
Not yet but it would be easy to add a feature to print postcards, generate a call list, or even send email.
– Rod <rod at sunsetsystems dot com>
andres_paglayan wrote on Tuesday, May 31, 2005:
and plugging asterisk gives the system the ability to place automatic reminder phone calls
dswillia2 wrote on Tuesday, May 31, 2005:
How easy is easy… and if I wanted to outsource the programming do you have any idea what i would be looking at cost wise?
sunsetsystems wrote on Tuesday, May 31, 2005:
I’m thinking it would be a single PHP module that’s linked to from the Reports page. Perhaps one day of effort by someone who knows PHP and OpenEMR… depends on what you want and how much time is required for followup testing and changes.
I’ll be happy to give you a quote if you’ll email me with some details.
– Rod <rod at sunsetsystems dot com>
drroller wrote on Wednesday, June 01, 2005:
Andres, you were working on the Asterisk integration right? how is that coming?
andres_paglayan wrote on Wednesday, June 01, 2005:
Yes, I am breaking in Asterisk with success so far.
The most difficult part is setting the system, but I will post the configuration files that work with the suggested equipment (wich is a sipura 3000 gateway for about $100), or a X100P FXO card. (original for $100, a clon costs $20)
Basically, a script queries the database for the next busines day apointments and places a call file for each patient on the asterisk outgoing directory. You just need an mp3 file with the generic message to play, personalized ones are possible, but much more complicated.
It also checks for the HIPAA option "patient allows phone calls" in demographics.
The phone calls will use about 20% of a 2.4 Mhz processor.
drroller wrote on Wednesday, June 01, 2005:
Sounds great! I already have a working Asterisk install with FXO and FXS ports on my system that runs openemr so we need to talk 
andres_paglayan wrote on Wednesday, June 01, 2005:
it involves moving (instead of writing) a file (one for each call) into /var/spool/asterisk/outgoing
the syntax for the file is
* Channel: <channel>: Channel to use for the outbound call
* Callerid: <id> Caller ID
* Application: Asterisk Application to run
* Data: The options to be passed to application
* MaxRetries: <number> Number of retries before failing
* RetryTime: <number> Seconds between retries, don’t hammer an unavailable phone
* WaitTime: <number> Seconds to wait for an answer
* Account: Set the account code to use.
# If the call answers, connect it here
* Context: <context-name> Context in extensions.conf
* Extension: <ext> Extension definition in extensions.conf
* Priority: <priority> Priority of extension to start with
* SetVar: Set variable to use in the extension logic.
i.e.
Channel: Zap/1/1XXXXXXXXXXXX
MaxRetries: 4
RetryTime: 60
WaitTime: 30
Context: reminder
Extension: 800
Priority: 1
the context within extensions.conf is the one that defines with recorded mesage is played.
We will need to add a flag to the appointment to show that has been parsed for a reminder call.
drroller wrote on Thursday, June 02, 2005:
Thank you for adding the HIPAA options!
One more that would be nice to add for next release would be Patient Allows Cell phone text message, and a selection box for proffered reminder method. I will add that to the RFE section here on Sourceforge.
Thank you! I will start playing with this and blog about it on my http://openemr.us blog.