Understanding contact notes

Contact notes are a key feature of Bp Comms available for practices.

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What is a contact note?

A contact note represents any attempt by the practice to contact a patient, by phone, letter, or any electronic method consented to by the patient. A note records: the details of the patient or person contacted (if a next of kin or carer responds, for example); the contact reason; communication method; the number of contact attempts for related communications; and the success status.

Contact notes demonstrate a detailed history of patient contact throughout clinical workflows such as pathology and clinical reminders.

When can I raise a contact note?

You can create a contact note from the following functions of Bp Premier: 

• Appointment book
• Follow up Reminders
• Follow up Inbox
• Patient demographics
• Patient list
• Patient clinical record.

The Record note button will be visible from the function's toolbar, or the right-click menu in the appointment book. Click to open a notes window. You can also resend electronic messages from a notes window. The process to record a contact note is the same no matter where you click Record Note.

Contact reasons

A contact reason indicates why the practice contacted the patient. Bp Premier supplies a diverse set of system contact reasons that cannot be deleted, but you can create your own in Setup > Configuration > Lists. Custom contact reasons can only be selected from manual contact notes, not from Bp Premier functions such as Follow up Inbox or appointment reminders.

Notes recorded directly from the Contact Notes list screen will default to the 'General' reason. If you have created your own practice contact reasons, you can change the reason. For example, you may create a reason of 'Invoice' , which you can use to record a contact note when you contact a patient about an invoice.

When you raise a contact note from a specific function, however, the reason will be automatically selected and you cannot change the reason. For example, contact notes raised from the appointment book default to 'Appointment'. Notes raised from Follow up Reminders default to 'Reminder'.

Following up contacts and resending messages

To review the contact notes recorded for all patients, from the main menu, select View > Contact Notes, and use the filters to limit the notes displayed. By default, this will show only the last month's contact notes and default to messages that have failed. The general Contact notes windows provides an audit and allows you contact the patient again about the message either by phone or by resending the message. Health Summary messages cannot be resent; instead, a fresh Health Summary must be sent.

To view all contact notes for a single patient, open the Patient list (F10), select a patient, and click Contact notes from the bottom row of buttons. Or open the patient demographics screen from any areas and click Contact notes.

Counting contact attempts

If you create multiple notes linked to the same report (or correspondence, etc.) Bp Premier will automatically increment the Contact Attempt No. value. You cannot change this value.

Can I view a message's current status?

The Message status in the bottom right of a notes window indicates whether the contact was successfully delivered, and depends on the Contact method. For example, communications by letter can be 'Sent' or 'Returned to sender'. Communications by phone can be 'Successful' (contact was made) or 'Unsuccessful' (phone rang out).

Clinical actions and contact notes

If a contact note has been generated by Bp Premier or added by a user from a clinical function, such as Reminders, Followup Inbox, or Correspondence In or Out from the patient record, that contact note will be linked to the source item, such as a reminder or an investigation result. See Bp Comms from the patient record for more information.

If you view an existing linked contact note and click Add, the new note will also be linked to the original document or record. This allows your practice to view the entire contact note history for an item from initial contact to resolution without needing to search for followup notes. The contact reason for all associated notes is set to the same reason as the first note and cannot be changed.

However, if a user manually adds a contact note through the global contact notes screen (View > Contact notes) or from patient demographics, a note does not have to link to a specific record. The contact note reason can be a general reason or any custom reason created in Setup > Configuration > Lists.

Example

A staff member runs a clinical reminder mail merge for annual health checkups and prints a batch of reminder letters, which are sent to patients. When Bp Premier generates the reminder letters, a contact note of reason 'Reminder' is automatically created and linked to the reminder item.

A patient receives the clinical reminder letter and calls the practice to arrange an appointment. From the Followup Reminders screen, a staff member selects the reminder and clicks Contact notes to view the contact history. The contact history will show the contact note created by Bp Premier for the reminder letter. The appointment is booked and the reminder actioned.

However, the doctor is ill that day and the appointment must be rescheduled. A staff member calls the patient to rebook. After rebooking, the staff member opens the contact history for the reminder again, clicks Add, and adds a new contact note with comments that the appointment had to be rebooked due to provider illness.

The second contact note will also be of reason 'Reminder' and will be linked to the original reminder. The contact attempt no. will be incremented to '2'.

Contact methods for manual notes

The following standard contact methods are available for notes where staff have manually contacted the patient and are manually adding a contact note: 

• Face to face
• Email

Selecting 'email' would indicate the staff corresponded with the patient using email outside of Bp Premier.

Which screen should I use to manage contact notes?

The table below summarises which screen to use depending on what you want to do: