A guide to embedding appointment reminders & confirmations in your EHR platform

As Electronic Health Record (EHR) platforms evolve from static data repositories into proactive engines for patient engagement, automating the appointment lifecycle has become a critical feature. Standard EHR reminders are often basic, one-way notifications that fail to combat costly no-shows or reduce administrative overhead. This guide explores how embedding advanced, interactive appointment reminder and confirmation journeys can solve these challenges and deliver significant value.

Examples of appointment reminders & confirmations in action

Automated SMS reminder & confirmation

This journey automates a simple, effective reminder process to reduce no-shows for standard appointments.

• An automated SMS is sent to the patient 24 hours before their scheduled appointment, personalised with their name and appointment time. The message asks the patient to reply 'YES' to confirm or 'REPLY' to reschedule.
• If the patient replies 'YES', their appointment status is automatically updated to 'Confirmed' in your platform, and they receive a thank-you SMS.
• If the patient replies 'REPLY', they receive an automated message asking them to call the clinic to find a new time. Simultaneously, a task is created in your platform for your user to follow up with the patient.
• If the patient does not reply within 12 hours, a second, more urgent reminder SMS is sent.
• If there is still no reply 4 hours before the appointment, the patient's appointment status is flagged as 'Unconfirmed' in your platform, and a notification is sent to your user.

Multi-channel journey for high-value appointments

This journey uses multiple channels and engagement tracking to ensure confirmation for high-value consultations, protecting crucial revenue.

• 72 hours before a specialist consultation, an email is sent to the patient containing appointment details, doctor information, and a link to a pre-consultation questionnaire hosted on your clients' website.
• The journey waits 24 hours, then checks if the patient has opened the email.
• If the email was not opened, an SMS is sent with the core appointment details and a prompt to confirm by replying 'CONFIRM'.
• If the email was opened, the journey waits until 24 hours before the appointment to send the SMS reminder.
• If the patient replies 'CONFIRM' to the SMS, their attendance is logged in your platform, and a final "We look forward to seeing you" message is sent.
• If the patient replies with any other keyword, like 'CANCEL' or 'HELP', their message is routed to your user's inbox within your platform for manual review and follow-up. The appointment status is automatically updated to 'Action Required'.

New patient onboarding & first appointment journey

This journey provides a welcoming and informative experience for new patients, ensuring they are prepared and confirmed for their first visit.

• Immediately after a new patient's first appointment is booked, they are sent a welcome email. This email includes a link to complete new patient forms online and provides directions to the clinic.
• 48 hours prior to the appointment, an SMS is sent, reminding them of their first visit and asking them to reply '1' to confirm or '2' to reschedule.
• If the patient replies '1', they receive a confirmation, and their record in your platform is updated.
• If the patient replies '2', a task is created for your user to call the patient and arrange a new time.
• On the morning of the appointment, a final SMS is sent: "Just a friendly reminder about your appointment at 10:00 AM today. If you're running late, please reply LATE and we will call you."
• If the patient replies 'LATE', your user is immediately notified to contact the patient and adjust the schedule if necessary.

Pre-procedure instructions & tiered confirmation

This journey is for appointments requiring patient preparation, ensuring compliance and reducing last-minute cancellations.

• One week before a scheduled minor procedure, the patient receives an email with a PDF attachment containing detailed pre-procedure instructions (e.g., fasting requirements, medication adjustments).
• Three days before the procedure, an SMS is sent asking the patient to confirm they have read the instructions by replying 'READ'.
• If the patient replies 'READ', their record is updated, and they receive a simple SMS reminder 24 hours before the procedure.
• If the patient does not reply 'READ' within 24 hours, an automated voice call is triggered. The call plays a recorded message reminding them to review the instructions and asks them to press '1' to confirm they will proceed.
• If the patient presses '1', their appointment status is updated to 'Confirmed'.
• If the call is not answered or the patient does not press '1', a high-priority task is created in your platform for a nurse or clinical staff member to perform a manual follow-up call.

Benefits of adding appointment reminders & confirmations to your EHR platform

By adding appointment reminders & confirmations, EHR platforms can drive real value for healthcare practices:

Reduce patient no-show rates: Decrease costly missed appointments by proactively engaging patients with automated, two-way reminders. By allowing patients to instantly confirm or request to reschedule via a simple message, you remove friction and ensure appointment commitments are top-of-mind.

Increase staff operational efficiency: Automate the time-consuming, manual process of appointment confirmation calls. Free up administrative staff from repetitive outreach tasks, allowing them to focus on higher-value patient services and in-clinic operations.

Improve patient engagement and satisfaction: Deliver a modern, convenient experience by communicating with patients on their preferred channels. Interactive messaging that simplifies tasks like confirming an appointment makes patients feel valued and enhances their perception of the provider's practice.

How to embed appointment reminders & confirmations in your EHR platform

So, you're convinced of the value. How do you actually embed appointment reminders & confirmations in your EHR platform? Several approaches exist, each with implications for development resources, time-to-market, and ongoing maintenance:

Custom development: This offers maximum customisation. However, it requires significant research and development, dedicated expertise, substantial upfront investment, and continuous ongoing maintenance to adapt to new needs. Time-to-market can be very long.

White-labeling a specialised solution: For many EHR providers, the most efficient, scalable, and feature-rich path is through white-labeling. This approach allows you to embed patient engagement capabilities quickly and seamlessly.

White-labeling software lets you integrate pre-built features or entire modules from a third-party provider directly into your own EHR platform. These features are presented seamlessly to your users under your brand and user interface. This dramatically accelerates your product roadmap by allowing you to instantly offer sophisticated, new capabilities without dedicating internal resources to build and maintain them from scratch.

Benefits of white label

Save time. Integrate powerful new functionality into your platform in a fraction of the time it would take for an internal build, dramatically accelerating your product roadmap and speed to market.

Focus your resources. A white label solution lets your development team concentrate on enhancing your core EHR features and unique value, rather than diverting resources to build adjacent capabilities.

Fully built solution. Immediately leverage a mature and scalable engine built and refined over years, offering proven capabilities to your users from day one.

Eliminate tech debt. The white label provider manages the technical upkeep, keeping your team agile.

Introducing Aperture by Pendula: A white label solution

Aperture by Pendula is a white label solution that powers some of the world's leading B2B SaaS platforms. We combine a visual workflow builder with native communication channels and powerful data integrations, allowing you to embed a complete patient engagement engine into your EHR platform in just weeks.

Key Capabilities:

Visual workflow & journey design: At the heart of Aperture is a powerful visual builder. It enables users to design sophisticated communication journeys with features like smart decisioning and flexible automation. You can choose to embed the full builder for maximum user flexibility, or offer pre-defined workflows for standardised use cases.

Data integration & triggers: Layer powerful data connectivity onto your workflows. Aperture's integration capabilities allow you to trigger journeys from user behaviour in your platform or data changes in other systems. This also enables rich audience segmentation based on real-time, unified data.

Omnichannel communication channels: Complete the journey with reliable communication. Aperture features native, scalable channels—including Email, SMS, RCS, and WhatsApp—that can be orchestrated by your workflows to deliver the right message on the right channel at the right time.

HIPAA-compliant by design: Built with the security and privacy requirements of healthcare in mind, ensuring all patient data and communications are handled in a compliant manner.

How to build an automated reminder journey with Aperture by Pendula

Let's take an example from above and see what it would look like as an actual flow inside your EHR platform:

Recipe: Automated SMS reminder & confirmation

Trigger: Webhook trigger

• Action: A scheduled process from your EHR Platform triggers this flow by sending a daily POST request to the flow's unique webhook URL. This process should query your EHR for appointments scheduled 24 hours from now.
• Payload data: The webhook payload must contain the necessary patient and appointment data, such as firstName, mobileNumber, and appointmentTime.

Action: Conversation node

• Action: An initial SMS is sent to the patient.
• Message body: The message is personalised using merge fields from the webhook payload: "Hi {{firstName}}, this is a reminder for your appointment tomorrow at {{appointmentTime}}. Please reply 'YES' to confirm or 'CHANGE' to reschedule."
• Replies: Paths are configured for expected responses.
• Outcomes: The "No reply" outcome is enabled and the reply expiry is set to 12 hours.

Branch

• Path 1: Patient confirms
  
  • Rule: Matches replies that are 'YES'.
  • Action: Make a web request Node - This sends a PATCH or PUT request to your EHR Platform's API to update the appointment record's status to 'Confirmed'.
  • Action: Outbound SMS node - A thank-you message is sent to the patient: "Thank you for confirming. We look forward to seeing you."
• Path 2: Patient reschedules
  
  • Rule: Matches replies that are CHANGE'.
  • Action: Outbound SMS node - An automated response is sent: "The clinic will call you to arrange a new appointment time."
  • Action: Make a web request node - This sends a POST request to your EHR Platform's API to create a new task for a user with the subject "Follow up with patient to reschedule."
• Path 3: No reply after 12 hours
  
  • Outcome: This path is followed if no reply is received within the 12-hour expiry window.
  • Action: Conversation node - A second, more urgent SMS is sent.
  • Message Body: "Final reminder for your appointment tomorrow at {{appointmentTime}}. Please reply 'YES' to confirm."
  • Outcomes: The "No reply" outcome is enabled and the reply expiry is set to 8 hours. This timing ensures the next action occurs 4 hours before the appointment.

Branch

• Sub-path 1: Patient confirms late
  
  • Rule: Matches replies that are 'YES'.
  • Action: Make a web request node - Sends a PATCH or PUT request to your EHR Platform's API to update the appointment record to 'Confirmed'.
  • Action: Outbound SMS node - A confirmation message is sent.
• Sub-path 2: Still no reply
  
  • Outcome: This path is followed if no reply is received within the 8-hour expiry window.
  • Action: Make a web request node - Sends a PATCH or PUT request to your EHR Platform's API to update the appointment record's status to 'Unconfirmed'.
  • Action: Make a web request node - Sends a POST request to your EHR Platform's API to create a task or notification for a user that the appointment remains unconfirmed.

As you can see, Aperture by Pendula is a powerful solution for seamlessly embedding appointment reminders & confirmations in your EHR platform.

Take the next step with Aperture by Pendula

Interested in white-labelling Aperture by Pendula to quickly and easily embed patient engagement capabilities in your EHR platform?