Diabetes Educators Calgary Charting Guidelines

Communicating with colleagues, team members and patients

Charting guidelines are intended for use by Diabetes Centre Calgary clinicians. This page is in development - ongoing updates are being made.

These are expected methods for communicating with colleagues, team members and patients. See this page for detailed descriptions of communication methods and norms.

Method	Main Use	Features	Examples of when to use
Secure Chat	Send a short message to colleague	Not part of the legal record, Deleted after 30 d, Stays on screen	Ask a non-urgent question, Remind someone that their patient has arrived
In Basket - Staff Messages	Task-based messages	Not part of the legal record, ability to attach a patient	Request an order from a CC doctor. Route a message to another provider or pool of providers.
In Basket - Specific Types	Varied, e.g. Chart Correction, Triage
myAHS Connect	Communications with patients	Replaces encrypted emails; Messages are part of the legal record; Messages appear in In Basket	Sending handouts, questionnaires to patients; Patient messages to providers, including questions and attachments
Phone/pager	Quick communication	Rich communication with patients and colleagues	Advice/orders from a colleague/physician; Clarification of details when communicating with patient or colleague
Encrypted Email	Communicating confidential information externally to AHS	Requires documentation in CC and capturing activity	Confidential communication when MyAHS Connect or phone is not available.
Regular Email	Communicating non-confidential information	Not part of the legal record.	Sending a publicly available handout; no confidential information included.

Check your In Basket messages first thing in the morning and several times during the day. Mentally note priority messages that need addressing. Look after messages during Admin time and if there are no-shows. The scenarios below refer to communication with patients. For information about other possible In Basket messages, please see the Quick Start Guide and Demystifying In Basket Messages. Detailed guidelines for InBasket are available here.

Messages sent to a pool (identified by a baton icon)

If the message is one that you can or should look after, then click the baton icon. This removes the message from the pool, and keeps it in your InBasket. Use the “Done” or “Follow-up” features as described below.
If the message is meant for someone else in the pool, just leave it alone. ***If you click Done, the message is gone for everyone in the pool, including the provider it was meant for ***
If the message is meant for a provider you suspect is not in the pool, forward to that person and click Done as described below. That moves the message to the intended recipient, and removes it from the pool.

Keeping your InBasket clean

If the message is one that you can deal with at the time, do what needs to be done, then click the “Done” icon.
If you read the message, and decide that you will look after the task involved at a future time, click the “Follow-up” icon.
A dialogue box opens, where you can set the date/time you would like to postpone the message to:

Patient messages and questions

See myAHS Connect below.

Results

You may be copied on certain patient lab results.

If there's no need to inform the patient: Click on Review
If you determine that you need to contact the patient:
More >
- “Call patient about abnormal result” if phoning
- Or if they are signed up for MyAHS Connect, right-click on the result and choose “MyChtEnc” to send a secure message through the portal.

MyAHS messages show up as encounters under Chart Review.

Patient-initiated messages

See this link for the MyAHS Connect User Guide for patients.

Patients can initiate a message with a CC provider, if they have an appointment booked within 90 days (before or after).
- Patient-initiated messages go to the Clinical Support pool (not to the individual provider).
- Once a provider responds to the message, replies from the patient go directly to that provider.
- Messages and responses are shown as encounters in the chart.
If when you respond to a MyAHS Connect message, it took more than 5 minutes of your time, and your response contains clinically relevant information:
- Use the Telephone Call button at the top to document your interaction, so that the activity is included.
- Under "Contacts", choose Other > Incoming > Email

Provider-initiated messages

The full guide for providers and clinic staff to use MyAHS Connect is here.

Go to In Basket and click on New Patient Message
Search for, and select the patient (needs to have signed up for MyAHS Connect).
Enter a subject for your message.
Enter your text in the Message field. You can create use Smart tools, if appropriate.
You can enter a date in the Delay field, to have the message sent at a later date.
You can enter a date in the Notify Me section, to get an alert that the patient has not read your message.
You can attach PDFs (e.g. handouts, lab requisitions), if desired. Add a document description. Document type will be auto-assigned to "Provider Attachment".
Select Send patient reply to me to have the response go to you rather than a pool.
Click Send.