Get Started With Bp Comms

Obtain SMS user name and initial Bp Comms credit

You may already have performed this step as part of your initial setup of Bp Premier.

Contact sales@bpsoftware.net to enable Bp Comms at your practice. Best Practice Software will ask you to complete and return a form. After processing the registration form, Best Practice Software will supply you with an SMS user name to enter during Bp Comms setup and your initial code to top up credit.

Configure Bp Comms for SMS

1. Select Setup > Configuration from the main Bp Premier screen. Select the Bp Comms tab.



2. Click Configure SMS at the top to open the SMS Connection Information screen.



3. If your network uses a proxy server to access the internet, tick the I use a proxy when connecting to the Internet checkbox, and enter the Proxy name, Proxy port, Proxy username, and Proxy password. If you are unsure whether your practice uses a proxy, your IT support can assist.
4. Enter the SMS user name you were assigned.
5. Change the Default SMS alpha tag: field if desired. See Change the default practice alpha tag for more information.
6. Click Test Connection to test the SMS connection. If the connection is successful, click OK to return to the Bp Comms screen.
7. Click Save to save your Bp Comms settings.

Change the default practice alpha tag

IMPORTANT   Updating Alpha Tags through the Bp Premier software has been deprecated due to ACMA Industry code changes in September 2023. To update your Practice's Alpha Tags, contact Bp Sales, who can help you authorise and whitelist new Alpha Tags.

Bp Comms alpha tags have a limit of 11 characters, and cannot contain special characters, except for hyphens.

Alpha tags will only display for non-appointment SMS messages. If you choose to change your practice's default alpha tag, appointment messages will still display a phone number to the patient rather than text.

In the SMS Connection Information screen, click Disclaimer to view the SMS Alpha Tag Disclaimer. If you change the default SMS alpha tag, you must ensure that the new alpha tag complies with the disclaimer.

For more information about using the Best Health App at your practice, see Get started with Best Health App.

Your practice requires internet access to use the Best Health App integration.

You must onboard every location where you want to use the Best Health App functionality. Before onboarding your location, check that the location details are correct in Bp Premier by navigating to Setup > Practice details from the main screen. When you are sure the location details are correct, you can onboard your location for Best Health App:

NOTE  You will need the user permission Best Health Settings set to 'Add/Edit/Delete' to make changes in the Best Health App Configuration window. See User Permissions for more information.

1. Log in to Bp Premier as a user with access to Configuration.
2. Select Setup > Configuration from the main menu. Select the Bp Comms tab and click Configure Best Health App.



3. Select a user and enter the user's password at the login screen and click Login. The Best Health Settings utility will appear. In the example below, the location 'Gladstone' has already been defined in Setup > Practice Details and the details for this location have been retrieved.



4. Tick Enable Best Health App usage for this location. The tabs in the window will be enabled for editing.
5. You can update the practice details retrieved for this window. However, the details displayed here are for the purposes of app onboarding only, and will not update the details stored in Setup > Practice Details. The details that are entered into this screen will be visible to the users of the Best Health App who are enrolled at your location.
6. You can set the location's Opening Hours, Website (if the practice has one), and add a Clinic Logo to be displayed on the app.
7. If the practice location uses a third-party application to book appointments, enter the Appointment URL used for third-party appointment booking.

This link will be available from the appointment section of the patient's app. Clicking the link will open the URL in the mobile device's browser.

8. Click Save.
   
   

If you have already spoken with Bp Sales and paid your Best Health App invoice, Best Practice Software activates your location and your License Status will change to Active in the [Best Health Settings] utility.



At this point, you can start Best Health App functionality and setting up templates.

If you have not yet spoken with Bp Sales, Bp Premier will submit the request to Best Practice Software for processing. This may take a minute. Once complete, you will soon be contacted by one of the Bp Sales team to complete the process.

Send Bp Comms appointment reminders

NOTE  Appointment reminders are not available to sites with a clinical-only licence.

1. From the appointment book, select Utilities > Send Appointment Reminders. The Appointment Reminders screen will appear.



2. Complete the fields on the left hand side to generate a list of applicable appointments:

Field	Description
By date span	Select a default period to search for appointments.
By date range	Specify a date range to search for appointments.
Search appointments by time between	Select only appointments between the specified times.
Exclude appointments that already have a reminder sent	Do not select appointments that have been included in previous appointment reminder sendouts.
Excluding appointments made within the last n days	Do not select appointments if booked in the prior specified number of days.
Include doctors' appointments	Select appointments with the specified doctors.
Include appointment types	Select appointments of the specified types.
Include locations	Select appointments at the specified locations.

Appointments that meet the criteria will appear on the right hand side of the screen.

3. Check or uncheck the SMS and App options in the Allow sending via checkboxes to disable or enable a Bp Comms method for this batch. This will change the list of appointment reminders that will be sent, either removing them from the list or changing the Send Via column to SMS or App depending upon what the patient has enrolled with.
4. Select a Template appropriate for this batch of appointment reminders.



5. The Edit button will be disabled if the template is not configured to allow editing before sending. If editing is allowed for this template, click the Edit button and make any required changes to the message text before sending.
6. In the Select which appointments to send reminders for list, untick any appointments you do not want included in the reminder send out.
7. Click Send all Reminders at the bottom right. If there are no duplicate reminders, the messages will be sent. Appointments will be updated with a green tick in the list if a reminder was sent.

Bp Premier will send all messages and deduct the credit from your Bp Comms credit.

Duplicate Reminders

Where a patient has multiple appointments in the selected range or there are multiple patients who have the same mobile phone number, a Duplicate Appointment Reminders screen will appear. This screen shows each appointment that would generate a duplicate message.

Untick the appointments that you don't want messages sent for and click the Send Reminders button.

Clinical reminders are sent in two steps: generate the list of patients with reminders, and choose the reminder method (SMS, Best Health App or letter, or output to print, file, or label).

Select patients for reminders

1. Select Clinical > Reminders or click the envelope icon on the main screen of Bp Premier. The Reminders screen will appear.



This screen displays reminders that have not yet been sent. If a reminder is 'marked as sent' from anywhere in Bp Premier, the reminder will not be displayed on this screen.

Clinically significant reminders are indicated in the Action column.

2. Click Select Patients to display the Select patients for reminders screen.



3. Select from the fields to search for patients with reminders to send:

Filter	Action
Clinically significant only	Filters the Reminder reasons to only show those marked as Clinically significant.
Filter by type	Filters the Reminder reasons to only show those that are linked to the selected type. Reminder types can be created in Setup > Configuration > Reminders.
Reason	Select one or more reminder reasons to send, or click Select all.
Due between / and	Select patients with reminders due between the dates only.
Select users	Select patients assigned a reminder by the selected doctors only.
Location	Select reminders sent from the selected locations only.
Include overdue reminders	Include patients with reminders that are overdue in the selected time period.
Include inactive patients	Include patients marked as inactive in their patient demographic.

4. Click Ok to return to the Reminders screen. The following actions are available using the top buttons:
   • To remove a single reminder, select the reminder and click Remove from list. The Reminder in the patient record will be unaffected.
   • To delete a reminder from the list and the patient record, select the reminder and click Delete Reminder. The Reminder will be deleted from the patient's record.
   • To view the appointments for a patient (to see if a future appointment might already be booked), click View appointments.

You can now send reminders using a suitable method for each patient.

Send reminders

1. From the Reminders screen, click Send reminders to open the Send reminders window.



Bp Premier will check if each patient has consented to receive SMS or Best Health App messages of type 'Clinical reminder'. Patients who have consented and enrolled will be added to the SMS or App total; patients who have not consented will be added to the Letter total.

2. In the Bp Comms tab, select the clinical reminder template you want to use.



3. If there are patients who will receive a letter reminder, select the Letter tab and select the clinical reminder letter template to use.



4. Tick the Update options to apply:
   • Mark as sent marks the reminder on the patient's record as 'Sent'. This option is selected by default for Mail Merge options (Letter, SMS, App) and cannot be changed. If you select to send by an Alternative output (Print, Label, File), Mark as sent can be edited.
   • Save a copy in each patient's record places a copy of the reminder letter or message into the Correspondence Out section of the patient's record. The name of a letter will be ‘Reminder letter’.
   • Add a new reminder for those marked as auto-update creates a new reminder in patient records where the reminder is configured to auto-update.
   • Combine reminders for the same patient combines multiple reminders in the Reminders list intended for the same patient into a single SMS or Best Health App message or reminder letter. The resulting message may exceed the character limit and require multiple credits to send.



5. The right side of the Send reminders window will show a summary of the message methods and the SMS credits available.



6. Click Send. Bp Premier will confirm that you want to send the selected reminders.



7. Click Yes to confirm. Bp Premier will send the messages and Deduct message credits from your Bp Comms credit.

Sending reminders is complete.

Follow up sent reminders

When sending mail merge clinical reminders, all included reminders will be marked as sent. If you want to review the reminders that have been marked as sent, and action or remark those reminders, you can do this from the Follow Up Reminders window. Select View > Follow up reminders from the Reminders window.

See Follow up sent reminders for more information.

You can send communications to patients in two ways from the Followup Inbox, depending on how your practice handles clinical reminders: 

• Send single SMS or Best Health App messages to patients, or contact a patient and record a contact note
• Send messages in bulk by SMS, Best Health App and letter by running a mail merge.

Send bulk clinical communications with a mail merge

1. From the main screen, select Clinical > Follow up Inbox.
2. Use the Filter by... and Checked by options to show only those results that you want to send in bulk, to make it easy to visualise what will be sent. You can also action any results now that you do not want to send in bulk.
3. Select File > Mail Merge to open the Follow up Inbox - Mail Merge window.



Bp Premier will check if each patient has consented to receive SMS or Best Health App messages of type 'Clinical Communication'. Patients who have consented and enrolled will be added to the SMS or App total; patients who have not consented will be added to the Letter total.

4. In the Bp Comms tab, select the clinical communication template you want to use.



5. If some patients will receive a letter, select the Letter tab and select the clinical communication letter template to use.



6. Set the Update options on the right hand side to apply.



If you filtered the list on the Follow up Inbox screen, the filters will be already set correctly. If not, filter the final list to be included in the list of results:

• Checked by doctor filters the list to results checked only by the selected provider.
• Reports checked from filters the list to reports checked between the selected dates.
• Include determines the results to include based on the assigned Action. For example, you could untick all boxes except Urgent appointment to follow up urgent results by SMS or Best Health App.

NOTE  Make sure the options you select here follow your practice's procedures for following up results.

• Mark as contacted will mark each investigation result as contacted and remove the result from the Follow up Inbox.
• Mark Result as given to patient will indicate that the patient has been given the result. The result in the patient’s file will be updated to indicate a status of ‘Given’ and the date.

Depending on how Bp Comms is configured at your practice, you can untick both Mark as contacted and Mark result as given to patient. In the Follow up Inbox, the report status will change to Sent, and the contact attempt will be counted in the Attempts column.

See Marking results as contacted and the Follow up Inbox for more information.

• Save a copy in each patient's record places a copy of the clinical communication into the Correspondence Out section of the patient's record.
7.  Click Send from the Mail Merge window. Bp Premier will confirm that you want to send the selected clinical communications.

   

8. Click Yes to confirm. Bp Premier will send the messages and deduct the total Bp Comms credits.

Sending results follow up communications is complete.

Health awareness communications are sent in two steps: generate the list of applicable patients from a database search, and choose the communication method (SMS, Best Health App or letter).

More information on health awareness communications and patient opt-out is available from Frequently asked questions about Bp Comms.

Select patients for communications

Press Ctrl+S or select Utilities > Search from the main screen to run a database search, using criteria to select patients that you want included in the communications. For example, you may want to search for all patients with diabetes for a health awareness campaign, or search for all patients with asthma, or who are 65 years old or over.

Running a search for Bp Comms is exactly the same as any other database search. See Searching the Database for more information.

The example below shows a search by Conditions for patients with 'Diabetes' in past history.

Send communications

1. After you have generated a list of patients from a database search, select File > Mail Merge. The Mail merge screen appears.



Bp Premier will check if each patient has consented to receive SMS or Best Health App messages of type 'Health Awareness'. Patients who have consented and enrolled will be added to the SMS or App total; patients who have not consented will be added to the Letter total.

2. In the Bp Comms tab, select the health awareness SMS template you want to use.



3. If there are patients who will receive a letter, select the Letter tab and select the health awareness letter template to use.



4. Tick the Update options to apply:
   • Save a copy in each patient's record places a copy of the health awareness communication into the Correspondence Out section of each patient's record.
   • Create a reminder for each patient adds a new reminder to each patient in the search results. The reminder will be marked as 'Sent' so you can monitor responses from the patient from the Follow up reminders screen. If you tick this option, you cannot include any reminder reason fields in the message sent.
5. Click Select Reminder to choose the reminder.



6. If you are not creating reminders from this communication, enter text in the Reason for this communication text area. This text will not be included in the message or letter to the patient, but allows the contact note that is automatically created to be identified.



7. If you are not creating a reminder, or are creating a reminder for 'any doctor', select a user from the Show communication as sent from dropdown. This dropdown shows only providers, unless Include all users is ticked.

Show communication as sent from identifies who a communication is being sent on behalf of, and appears in the contact note that is created. This information is not included in the message or letter.

8. Click Send from the Mail Merge window. Bp Premier will confirm that you want to send the selected health awareness messages.

   

9. Click Yes to confirm. Bp Premier will send the messages and deduct the total of Bp Comms credits.

Sending reminders is complete.

Send a single appointment reminder

To send a patient a single Bp Comms reminder, the patient must have an appointment in the appointment book.

1. Open the appointment book. Select the patient's appointment and click Utilities > Send message from the menu. The Send Message screen will appear.



2. Select a Template other than the default if you need to. The message box will be populated with the selected template and field information. You can edit the message if required.
3. Click Send.

Send a single message

1. From the main screen, select Clinical > Follow up Inbox.



2. Use the Filter by... and Checked by options to show only those results you want to work with. For example, if you are a nurse, you might filter on an action of 'Nurse to Advise', or 'All unactioned', so that you are only working with applicable reminders.
3. The leftmost column contains an icon that indicates one of: 
   • the patient's preferred contact method
   • the contact method of the last contact note for this reminder, if one exists.

   The legend along the bottom of the screen explains the different icons and colours that can apply.

4. If the icon colour indicates that a patient has been contacted about this reminder, click Record note to view the contact notes associated with that reminder, such as a phone attempt with no reply, or an appointment has already been booked.
5. If the patient preferred contact is SMS or App, click Send message to open the Send message screen. You can only select templates of type 'Result' if you open this screen from the Follow up Inbox.



6. Review the message text and click Send. The message will be sent and a contact note automatically created to record the message send.
7. Action the reminder according to your practice's guidelines, such as marking as contacted.

Send a message from the patient record

1. Select Bp Comms > Send patient message from the menu. The Send message window will appear.



2. Review the patient consent (green checkboxes) and ensure that the patient has consented to receive the type of message you are about to send.
3. Select whether to send via SMS or App. App will only be available if the patient has enrolled for the Best Health App with your practice location. SMS is available if the patient has enrolled for SMS messages. The default Send via selection is based on your practice's Preferred Practice contact method configuration setting.
4. Select the Template you want to use.
5. Modify the text if the template permits and click Send. The message will be forwarded to the messaging service.

1. Select Rx from the patient record and create a prescription as per usual. You can also send an existing repeat Rx by electronic script. See Add or cease Rx for more information.
2. Tick the check box next to the drug that you want to send an electronic prescription token for. You can select multiple scripts; all selected scripts will be sent by the same method.
3. Select the method for sending the electronic prescription token from the Token: drop-down menu.

The eScript button will become available in the patient record after electronic prescribing has been enabled. More information is also available in Frequently asked questions about electronic prescribing.



The options are:

• Paper — Prints the token to a blank sheet of paper. The paper cannot be a preprinted template.
• SMS (default) — Sends the token to the phone number recorded in the patient demographics.
• SMS (Other) — Sends the token to a phone number entered by the prescriber, for example, to a carer. Bp Premier will remember the number entered here for the duration of the current visit only.
• Email (default) — Sends the token to the email address recorded in the patient demographics.
• Email (Other) — Sends the token to an alternate email address entered by the prescriber.
• App — Send the token to the Best Health App if the patient is enrolled.
• MySL — The token is sent to the patient's MySL record. This option is only available if the Prescriber has existing access to view the MySL record of the patient. When the MySL token is selected from the token drop-down menu and the eScript button is clicked, no evidence of the prescription is created— this means no paper, email, or SMS tokens are sent to the Patient. See Using My Script List (MySL) for more information.




NOTE  If printing the token to paper, you may wish to explain that the printed token is an evidence of prescription only, and not the actual script they may be used to receiving.

4. Click eScript to send.

If electronic prescribing has not been correctly configured, an alert will appear indicating which information is required in order for electronic prescribing to work.



5. If you have prescribed a schedule 8 drug, you will be prompted to re-enter your Bp Premier password. Re-enter your password and click OK. See Sending schedule 8 eScripts for more information.
6. If you selected 'SMS (Other)' or 'Email (Other)', Bp Premier will prompt to enter the phone number or email address to send to. Enter a number with no spaces or an email address, and click Continue.



7. The Verify eScript screen will appear. Check that the information provided for the script or scripts being sent is correct, then click Send.



8. If the electronic prescription is successfully received by the prescription exchange service, Bp Premier will show a success alert.



If the electronic prescription was not successfully sent, or the attempt times out, Bp Premier will report an error.



IMPORTANT   If an error occurs when sending the electronic prescription, Bp Premier will automatically print the script to preprinted paper by default and mark the script as printed.

If sending by SMS or email, the number or email address will receive a message with a hyperlink in it only a few seconds after being sent from Bp Premier. The receiver must click the hyperlink on their device to view the token, which will contain a QR code that can be scanned at or forwarded to the pharmacy.

If sending by via the Best Health App, the patient will receive the message in the app inbox.

NOTE   If the patient has third-party apps on their device that can be used to display electronic prescription tokens (for example, a pharmacy app), the token may open in the third-party app instead. This depends on the operating system configuration of those apps. When the patient receives the token via the Best Health App for the first time, they can choose how they would like to open their token. They will still be able to obtain their script.

1. Press F10 to open the Patient list. Search for the patient by name, or click Advanced search to search by DOB, Medicare number, or HI number.
2. Select the patient from the list of search results and click Contact notes in the bottom right corner, or press Alt+C. The Contact notes screen will appear.



3. Use the Reason, Method, and Message status filters along the top to restrict the contact records shown. For example, select ‘Unsuccessful’ from the Status filter to view only unsuccessful contact attempts that need following up.
4. Select a date range and a Location to restrict the records shown.
5. Filter from where within Bp Premier the message was sent from by using the Origin list. The Origin list could contain the options All, Inbox, Follow up Inbox and Patient record.

Options available in the Origin list depends upon from where within Bp Premier contact notes for this patient has been sent.

Select All if you are searching for a Contact Note that was not sent from either the Inbox, Follow up Inbox or Patient Record.

6. Tick Show deleted at the bottom to include deleted contact note records in the list.
7. Click View to open a contact record, Print to print the selected contact note, or Patient details to open the patient demographics screen for the patient.