How to Create Patient Notifications and Alerts

Related Training
Using Patient Notifications and Alerts Recorded Class

Sensei Cloud enables you to create unlimited categorized Patient Notifications that are visible anywhere in the software where the Patient Mini Card is displayed. These notifications can be marked further to visually alert team members in certain workflows to ensure that the information is not missed. Both options provide a quick way to communicate impermanent information between teams when viewing various parts of a Patient Record with increasing visibility as needed. 

The Patient Notification indicator is a yellow sticky note icon  , which is displayed below the medical alerts icon on the Patient Mini Card. The corresponding number tells you how many notifications exist.

When marking any Patient Notification as an Alert, the sticky note icon includes a red bell  indicating one or more of the Patient Notifications is set as an Alert.

Important:

• These notifications are for internal office use to store temporary items that you want to remember and share with other staff members (e.g., the patient prefers appointments on Tuesday mornings, the patient prefers strawberry fluoride, etc.). They can be edited or archived at any time.
• These notifications are not meant to be used in place of clinical notes or as a permanent record of patient information. To add and maintain permanent documentation, use the Notes functionality for the associated record (i.e., Appointment, Clinical Event, Transaction, Treatment Plan, etc.) or use the general patient's Notes functionality (Patient tab > Notes). See How to Use Non Clinical Patient Notes for more information. 

Viewing and Editing Patient Notifications 

You can click the sticky note icon on the patient's mini card to open the Patient Notifications and Alerts window and manage their notifications. From this window, you can edit existing notifications or add new. 

From the Actions menu, click Add New Notification to add additional notifications.

You can filter the displayed Patient Notifications and Alerts to those created (or edited) by any user or just yourself. Additionally, you can view the patient's current (active) notifications, archived items, or all. You can also filter the list based on association with one, multiple, or all notification Categories. 

There are several icons displayed on the sticky notes that are either informational or allow you to take action.

See the following icon key for more information:

• : Clinical category 
• : Financial category
• : Scheduling category
• : Patient Record category
• : Miscellaneous category
• : Alerts are enabled
• : Tooltips are enabled
• : Notifications only
• : Click this icon to archive the notification. Archived notifications can be accessed by filtering the list from Current to either Archived or All. 
• : Click this icon to edit the notification. 

Note: The Category icons for the notifications that the patient has also appear in the menu banner of the patient's tab.

When a Notification is flagged as an Alert (Visibility setting), a pop-up is automatically presented to the end user. The workflows for which a given Alert is displayed is based on the associated Category:

• Clinical: Displayed when accessing any menu from the Patient > Clinical drop-down (e.g., Clinical Chart (EMR), Perio Chart, etc.) as well as when using the Time Out feature in the Anesthesia Record. 
• Financial: Displayed when accessing the Patient Ledger or Contracts, as well as when you expand the patient's row in the Statement Worklist or Accounts Receivable. 
• Scheduling: Displayed when accessing the Appointment Card, or when expanding the patient's row in any of the Appointment Worklists (e.g., Confirmation List, Pending List, etc.).
• Patient Record: Displayed when accessing the Patient tab, the Patient Record, or clicking any of the Update Patient Record hyperlinks.
• Miscellaneous: There are no alert messages.

Creating Patient Notifications

To create a Notification for a patient:

1. From the patient's Home tab, click the sticky note icon. The Patient Notifications and Alerts window is displayed.
   
   Note: You can access the sticky note icon from any other patient menu as well, such as Patient > Patient Record, Patient > Hard Tissue Chart/Dental Chart, etc. 
2. From the Actions menu, click Add New Notification.
   Note: If the patient has no active notifications, then the system defaults to creating a new notification.
3. Select a category for the reminder.
   
   Note: The category defaults to Clinical. 
4. Enter a message in the Notification Text box. This field is required.
5. Select a level of visibility:
   --Notifications Only: The notification is counted on the sticky note icon (on the Patient Mini Card) and is available for review when you open the Patient Notifications and Alerts window, but the notification text is not displayed in the tooltip when hovering over the sticky note icon.
   
   --Tooltip & Notifications: The notification is counted on the sticky note icon, the text is displayed in the tooltip on hover, and the notification is available for review when you open the Patient Notifications and Alerts window.
   --Alert, Tooltip & Notifications: The notification is counted on the sticky note icon (and triggers the red bell icon), the text is displayed in the tooltip on hover, and the notification is available for review when you open the Patient Notifications and Alerts window.
   Additionally, a message with the alert pops up when performing a relevant workflow, based on the assigned Category. For example, any Financial alerts automatically pop up when accessing the patient's Ledger, Ortho Contracts, etc.
6. If applicable, select an expiration date for the notification.
   Note: If an expiration date is entered, the notification is displayed through the selected date. The following day the notification is archived.
7. Click Save. The (Value) before the sticky note icon on the Patient Mini Card is updated to reflect the number of notifications the patient has. 

Note: When an alert is displayed, you have the option to close it or to click Dismiss All. The Dismiss All option disables all alerts of that category, for this specific patient, for this specific user for the remainder of the day. Other alert categories, patients, and users are not affected; all alerts are automatically re-enabled the following day.