How to create a new appointment type

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To create a new appointment type, go to 'Management' and then on to 'Appointment Types' in the Diary section.

1) Enter the name of the appointment into the Name field.
2) Enter a short name for the appointment in the short name field. This is what you will see in the diary.
3) Enter the VAT rate of the appointment. Note that T9 is standard 17.5% as of Summer 2005
4) Enter any comments that are specific to this appointment type that you wish to have emailed out with the appointment confirmation email. This is useful for specific appointments that may require detailed instructions on what to bring, or what to wear.
5) Click create

Your appointment type will now be in the Pending appointment types list.

6) Click on the Appointment from the Pending appointment types list.

This area allows you to create 'Multimodal' appointments. Any appointment may consist of multiple specialities. The system uses the search engine to pool these people and bring them together in your appointment. This does make the appointment harder to create, but it does provide a lot more flexibility.

7) Give your first 'Appointment type participant' a name. If you only have one participant, this may just be 'Main'. If you have 13 participants, you may wish to label it 'One'. The use of the name is for both you and your patient's reference.
8) Allocate a speciality to this participant. You may select more than one speciality if more than one type of person can perform this part of the appointment.
9) Click Add participant.

Your appointment type participant will now have appeared in the list below the main box. If you wish to add another participant, you may do so now.

10) Click on the name of the 'Participant' you have just created. This may be called 'Main'
11) You may now enter the sections of the appointment. Give each section a name. The 'Start' time is the time at which you would like this appointment type section to start, and the 'End' time is the time at which you would like it to end. In a 30min appointment for example, you would choose: 00:00 and 00:30 here.
12) Click 'Add section'
13) If you wish this participant to return to the appointment later - ie an appointment where a patient sees a doctor, then a nurse, then a doctor again, you may now add another section for this participant here. Remember that the 'Start' time of this section will be the time at which the section starts after the appointment should have begun. ie - if you wish a doctor to enter the appointment half an hour after it has begun, enter 00:30 as the 'Start' time.
14) Repeat this procedure with any other participants you may have in the appointment.

You now have a complete appointment.

15) Choose the primary participant of the appointment. The easy way to determine this is to ask who the patient is coming to see: If they are coming to see a doctor, but may spend some time with the nurse, then the primary participant is the doctor.
16) Choose the preferred search behaviour. The system allows people to be prioritized based on their value. In the example above, if the doctor's time is more valuable, then 'Prefer' the Doctor. If you prefer to keep the nurse busy and ensure her appointments are better scheduled, 'Prefer' the Nurse.

That's it!

17) Hit Activate.

This is quite complicated, but it does allow you to create virtually any type of appointment you might like.