Connect Care Support Forum: Communications

Showing posts with label Communications. Show all posts

New Secure Chat Functions - Secure Chat Groups and Message Templates

Enhancement updates provide short alerts to new, fixed or improved Connect Care functions...

New Secure Chat Functions - Secure Chat Groups and Message Templates

As of November 27, 2025, to help streamline communication via Connect Care's secure messaging hub, Secure Chat, a new "Secure Chat Groups" functionality will be available that allows users to define a group of people that can be messaged at once. Additionally, to reduce the time spent typing out responses, users will now be able to select from common message templates when starting a Secure Chat conversation.

Secure Chat Groups

Prescribers as well as managers can create and manage Secure Chat Groups for their own use. These groups have permanence and will not have to be recreated even if the original/last conversation has been purged (i.e., is over 30 days old).

The group owner can add other users to the group as members.
Members can opt-out of the group at any point.
User-created groups are hidden by default, so only members of a particular group can message that group. A request can be made to IT to unhide the group, which would allow anyone in the organization to send messages to the group.
The same Communication Norms that apply to regular Secure Chat messaging apply to Secure Chat Groups.
See the Guideline for additional details including best practices and naming convention.
Note: Residents and students are not able to create or manage a Secure Chat Group.

IT also has the ability to create Secure Chat Groups for departments that use the sign-in workflow (e.g., Inpatient, Stork, ASAP) and for general groups. These groups are unhidden by default, allowing others to send messages to those groups.

Requests for these types of Secure Chat Groups cannot be actioned until the new year. Please do not submit tickets for these group type until January 5, 2026.

Message Templates

Users can respond to Secure Chat messages by choosing from one of the five below message templates:

Acknowledge Message
With Patient
Wrong Person
Not on Clinical Service (available for prescribers only)
Order in Connect Care

For more information on Secure Chat and Secure Chat Groups, see:

Anesthesia Users - Handoff Activity Update

Enhancement updates provide short alerts to new, fixed or improved Connect Care functions...

Anesthesia Users - Handoff Activity Update

The "Handoff" report(s) can be accessed from Patient Lists within an open chart. Previously, anesthesia users were able to view but not update existing Handoff reports. As of August 5, 2025, anesthesia users will see a "Write Handoff" button in the Patient List toolbar. When this button is clicked, updates can be written within the text fields of the Handoff tab in the right sidebar (click the camera icon below for a screenshot).

Note that only one Handoff report will be kept for users from the same specialty, the next provider from the same specialty will be updating the same Handoff report.

In Basket Update - Inpatient Cosign Notes Folder

Enhancement updates provide short alerts to new, fixed or improved Connect Care functions...

Removal of Defer Button from Cosign Notes Folder

As of July 12, 2024, in In Basket, the "Defer" button that appears when within the inpatient "Cosign Notes" folder will be removed (click on the camera icon to see a screenshot). Previously, clicking on this button to indicate that the provider was not the appropriate cosigner would cause an error.

If you receive a request for cosign in error, either reply to the sender to indicate you are not the appropriate cosigner, or forward to the appropriate provider (if known).

Update - DI Appointment Provider Notification

Enhancement updates provide short alerts to new, fixed or improved Connect Care functions...

Changes to DI appointment notifications sent to ordering providers

As of June 10, 2024, the Diagnostic Imaging (DI) notification of appointment that Connect Care generates and sends to the Connect Care ordering provider will no longer include the patient portion. Connect Care generates these notifications if the appointment is booked more than 48 hours from time of scheduling, and sends them to the ordering provider via fax and In Basket. The provider notifications include appointment details and preparation instructions; prior to this change, the provider notifications also included a copy of the notification letter that is sent by DI to the patient.

Over the past 4 years, DI has received feedback requesting to turn off faxes and/or In Basket notifications. At this time, Connect Care cannot differentiate between an AHS Connect Care provider and a community provider, so faxes and/or In Basket messaging cannot be turned off for only a sub-set of providers. However, to minimize the length of these provider notifications, the patient portion of the provider notification will be removed (i.e., from notifications sent to both Connect Care providers and community providers).

This change is expected to reduce the total number of pages for each faxed notification by 1 to 3 pages (click on the camera icon below to see a screenshot of an example notification - the red X indicates the portion that will be removed). Patients will continue to receive appointment details and preparation requirements directly from DI by phone, mail, or MyChart.

Update (May 2026): The patient-facing preparation instructions that were previously included in the provider notifications are now on MyHealth.Alberta.ca.

ASAP Users - Handoff Activity Now in Dispo Tab

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ASAP Users - Handoff Activity Now in "Dispo" Tab

With the upgrade to Hyperdrive, previous personalization by ASAP module users (ED and rural prescribers) of pinning the Handoff activity to the top of the patient chart has been lost. As a workaround, starting on February 29, 2024, when a patient's chart is opened, a "Write Handoff" option can be found in the "Dispo" toolbar menu.

Communications Update – ED Provider Note Trigger

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Communications Update – ED Provider Note Trigger

In April 2022, AHS made enhancements to Connect Care and eDelivery that allowed for the automatic delivery of summative documentation from Connect Care to a patient’s identified Primary Care Provider (PCP). AHS continues to receive valuable feedback from providers about the effectiveness of these communications, particularly when it comes to volume of documents that providers receive. In some cases, providers may receive multiple versions of some summative documentation as a result of changes to AHS provider workflows.

As of March 21, 2023, AHS has changed the criteria that “trigger” the sending of an ED Providers Note to the identified PCP, as this type of summative documentation was identified as having the greatest volume of communications. Signed ED Provider Notes will now be sent to the PCP only after a patient is admitted to hospital or discharged from ED. This will reduce the number of “versions” of an ED Provider Note that get communicated externally and reduce the overall volume of ED Provider Notes. Signed ED Provider Notes that are edited or addended post-admission or post-discharge will be distributed as additional versions of the note.

For more information, see the memo.

Consult Order Updates

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Consult Order Updates

Two updates have been made to the Consult order, to help with identifying and contacting the receiving prescriber:

ROCA link: A link to the Regional On-Call Application (ROCA) is now included directly within the Consult order window. ROCA is the facility locating service that can help identify who is accepting consults at a particular facility, for a particular specialty, at a specific time.
Consultant call question: A question has been added to the order on whether the consultant has been contacted, to prompt a call if not yet placed. If "No" is selected, a number of options will appear to indicate what action will be taken to ensure the receiving prescriber is aware of the consult and relevant details.

For more information:

Manual: Consultation Workflows

Update - Patient Portal Messages for Mixed-Context Prescribers

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Patient portal messages no longer forwarded to mixed-context prescribers

A physician working in a mixed context (i.e., working in an AHS facility as well as at a private clinic/office in the community) may be added to a patient’s care team in Connect Care as a Primary Care Provider (PCP) for a patient receiving services with AHS; however, their role as PCP is related to the community clinic. Patient messages sent via MyChart to their PCP in this case would not be related to their care with AHS nor to the work the physician does in AHS. As there are no pools or structure to support these messages, the messages are routed to an IT team error pool instead of to the intended physician.

When IT receives a message sent by a patient via MyChart that is intended for a mixed-context PCP, IT confirms that it was intended to go to a physician who does not have a department that schedules appointments in Connect Care and therefore does not have a clinical support advice request pool to support message management. IT then responds to the patient, letting them know their physician cannot be reached via MyChart, and to instead contact the community clinic directly.

IT will no longer forward these messages to the physician. Connect Care is also working on a technical solution to prevent patients from being able to send messages to physicians on their care team who do not have an associated pool structure to support them.

Communications Update - Sensitive Letters

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Confidentiality Feature - Marking Letters as Sensitive

As of September 16, 2022, letters (like notes) can now be marked as "Sensitive". When a letter is marked sensitive, it will only be routed to the selected recipient(s) of the letter and will be excluded from Netcare and automated eDelivery to the patient's Primary Care Provider (PCP).

The patient’s PCP will only receive a letter marked as sensitive if they are specifically selected as one of the recipients.
In Hyperspace, viewing of the letter contents will only be available to users with the same specialty as the letter author, users logged in to the department of the patient’s encounter, or users logged in to the virtual department that matches the specialty of the encounter department.

A letter can be marked as "Sensitive" by selecting the "Sensitive" button appearing in the communications workflow. The "Sensitive" property can then be removed by selecting the "Addendum" option in the identified letter and unchecking the "Sensitive" designation. Only the author of the letter can adjust the sensitive properties of the letter.

Sensitive letters should always be used with discretion and professional judgement, and in a manner that supports access to health information required for continuity of care.

For more information on the use of this feature, see the Confidentiality Practice Guidelines.

Communications Update - Send Notes Buttons

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Renamed and New Send Notes Buttons

As of June 7, 2022, in the Communications section for ambulatory encounters, the "Send Notes" button has been renamed "Send Last MD/NP Note". An additional "Send All Notes" button has also been added, which captures all progress notes or telephone notes for the current encounter.

Quick Click Update for Ambulatory Encounters

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'Quick Click' Update for Ambulatory Encounters

As of April 21, 2022, new functionality has been enabled for outpatient encounters to make it easier to rapidly route notes to the patient's primary care provider (PCP) and referring provider. The Quick Click communication function does not work for hospital outpatient department encounters (HODs; e.g., Rehabilitation Medicine).

Clinical observations (consultation or updates) can be documented in the progress note associated with an outpatient encounter. When prescribers use this note to record all pertinent clinical observations, assessments and plans, the progress note can then be incorporated into a standardized "letter" that goes out (e.g., to PCP, referring provider, copied provider) via the "communications" part of an outpatient navigator. A new shortcut allows this workflow to be automated.
To send an outpatient progress note to the patient's PCP and referring provider, click the "Send to PCP & referring" checkbox appearing at the top-right of the note editor.

The PCP and referring provider fields must be populated in the patient's chart for this checkbox to appear. If one of these fields are not filled in, the checkbox will be named "Send to PCP" or "Send to referring". If neither field is populated, "Send notes" will appear.
The outpatient communication letter will be routed using the receiving providers' default communication method.

Note that this workflow also sends the communication to Netcare (and, later this year, to community EMRs that have updated to receive such letters via eDelivery) and should be used only when this is appropriate.
To edit the communication before it is sent, including adding additional recipients (e.g., copying yourself), click the "Communications" link to the right of the checkbox or use the communications section of the "wrap up" navigator.

If there is no PCP or referring provider indicated in the chart, they can be added in the communications tool.

In addition to the new functionality, the content of the relevant letter templates (AHS TO REFPROV + NETCARE CONSULT, PRESCRIBER PROGRESS NOTES [Consult/Netcare Notes] and AHS TO REFPROV + NETCARE PROCEDURE, PRESCRIBER PROCEDURE NOTES [Proc/Netcare Notes]) has been simplified:

Modified content: "Please find below select notes from the Connect Care medical record for @FNAME@ @LNAME@."
Previous content: "Thank you for referring @FNAME@ @LNAME@ to me for evaluation. Below are my notes for this consultations. If you have questions, please do not hesitate to call me."

For more information:

In Basket - Attachments for Patient Messages

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Adding Attachments to In Basket Patient Messages

As of November 4, 2021, attaching documents to a patient message in In Basket has been simplified.

To attach a document to an In Basket patient message, initiate a patient message from its menu item (available only for patients with an activated MyChart patient portal service), then in the "Patient Message" screen:

Select the "+Add" button in the "Attachment" row of the "Tasks & Attachments" section.
From the "Media Selector" window that opens, select the desired document to be attached:

Attaching a Connect Care document: In the "Detailed View" tab, the "All Media" list shows all media available in Connect Care for that patient (including scanned/imported files), with document types and descriptions. Select the desired document and click the "Accept" button.
Attaching a document from your device: Click the "Browse" tab (to the right of "Detailed View"). In the "Open" window that pops up, click "This PC", select the desired document, and click the "Open" button. Add a description in the "Description" field (note: the patient will see this description).

The document type will automatically fill in as "Provider Attachment".

For more information:

Patient Messages going to Clinic In-Basket Pools

Problem: Some patient communications appear to be inappropriately copied to clinic messaging pools when the patient and/or physician assumed that the exchange was exclusive to provider and patient.

Context: Some physicians already take advantage of Connect Care secure messaging to communicate with their patients. When patients use MyChart (patient portal), they are able to report outcomes and seek guidance from their clinician between visits; helpful in chronic disease management. Although many interactions may be okay for copying to a clinic messaging pool, where support staff can screen messages for urgent issues and ensure timely connections with the right providers, the physician and/or physician may want to keep the communication loop closed.

Solution: Clinic-level incoming messaging pools are important for ensuring that patient communications are appropriately screened, triaged and directed to the right provider. Previously, the "Send patient reply to me" checkbox, appearing on all message composition screens for physician-to-patient communications, was not selected by default. Clinicians may not have noticed and may not have appreciated that the patient reply would copy to a clinic message pool. As of this week, this option is now selected by default.

FAQ: How can patient messages be restricted to patient-physician?

Automated Appointment Reminders - Are they Working?

Problem: An automated telephone appointment reminder system has been integrated with the Connect Care clinical information system and deployed at the end of January 2020. There will be growing pains. Physicians experiencing a no-show may wonder whether the patient received an appointment reminder but do not know how to do this within the Connect Care outpatient chart.

Context: Automated reminders can free up clinic support staff for other important patient support activities. However, they do not work for all situations. Clinics managers can submit a request to opt-out, some areas have customized reminder scripts (coming soon), and some outpatient venues (e.g. procedures) will not be enabled until more experience accrues.

Solution: There is a way to get the patient appointment reminder status but it involves using the Department Appointments Report (DAR) functionality and editing the display columns to include one or more appointment status-related columns (e.g., "Patient Communication Preference", "Patient MyChart Status", "Confirmed Appointment", "Appointment Reminder Sent", "ES Phone Reminder Status"). Instructions for doing this are included in the tip linked below.

Easier is to open the “Appt” activity within a chart. This has a appointment reminder letter audit trail for each apt. We are looking for simpler ways to know of reminder status and are seeking addition of this information to the Appt chart activity.

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