A guide to embedding preventative care reminders in your EHR platform

As Electronic Health Record (EHR) platforms evolve from passive data repositories into proactive care platforms, automating preventative care has become essential. Relying on manual staff outreach is inefficient and leads to missed opportunities for early detection. This guide explores how embedding automated reminder journeys directly into your EHR can systematically improve health outcomes and deliver significant value to your users.

Examples of preventative care reminders in action

Annual flu shot campaign

This flow proactively contacts patients over 65 or those with specific respiratory conditions to encourage them to book their annual flu vaccination.

• An automated SMS is sent to a segment of patients including everyone over 65 and those of any age with a recorded diagnosis of asthma or COPD at the start of the flu season.
• The message reminds them it's time for their flu shot and asks if they would like to book an appointment by replying 'YES'.
• If the patient replies "YES," they receive a follow-up SMS containing a unique link to your online booking portal, pre-filtered for "Flu Vaccination" appointments.
• If the patient does not respond within 3 days, a follow-up email is sent with more information about the importance of the flu vaccine and the same booking link.
• If the patient replies "NO," their record is updated to "Declined Flu Shot 2025," and they are excluded from further reminders for this campaign.
• Once an appointment is booked via the portal, the patient is automatically removed from this reminder flow.

Proactive mammogram screening

This journey automates mammogram reminders for female patients over 40 who haven't had a screening recorded in your platform in the past two years.

• An email is sent to all female patients aged 40+ whose last mammogram date is more than 23 months ago.
• The email explains the importance of regular screenings and provides three clear actions: book now, request a callback, or indicate they've already been screened.
• If the patient clicks the "Book Now" link, they are directed to a booking page for a local imaging center.
• If the patient clicks "Request a Callback," a task is automatically created in your platform for an administrative user to call the patient.
• If the patient clicks "Already Screened," they are sent to a simple form to enter the date of their recent screening, which then creates a task for a user to review and update their record.
• If there is no interaction with the email (no open or click) within 7 days, an SMS is sent as a gentle follow-up, asking them to check their email for an important health reminder from their provider.
• When a booking is made or the callback task is marked as "complete," the patient is exited from this automated flow.

Colonoscopy education and booking for high-risk patients

This flow targets patients eligible for a colonoscopy screening, with tailored messaging for those identified as high-risk based on data in your platform.

• The journey is triggered for all patients when they turn 45.
• The system first checks their record for specific risk factors, such as a family history of colorectal cancer.
• Patients identified as high-risk receive a personalised email containing links to educational resources about why screening is especially important for them.
• Patients at standard risk receive a more general informational email.
• Three weeks later, if no appointment has been booked in your platform, a follow-up SMS is sent to both groups.
• The SMS asks the patient to reply '1' to receive a booking link or '2' to speak with a nurse.
• If the reply is '1', they receive an SMS with a link to the gastroenterology department's booking page.
• If the reply is '2', a task is generated in your platform for a clinical user to schedule a callback, with a note added to the patient's record about the inquiry.
• If the patient's record is updated with a booked colonoscopy appointment at any stage, they are removed from the reminder journey.

Paediatric immunisation series reminders

This sequence ensures parents of pediatric patients receive timely reminders for their child's upcoming immunisations based on their age and vaccination history.

• The flow is triggered for a parent or guardian when their child's record indicates they are due for their 18-month immunisations.
• An initial SMS is sent, listing the required immunisations and providing a direct link to book a "Childhood Immunisation" appointment type.
• If no appointment is booked within 14 days, the system checks the patient's record for any relevant upcoming appointments.
• If no appointment exists, a second reminder is sent via email, this time including a link to an FAQ page about the 18-month vaccinations.
• If the parent replies to the SMS with a question (any text that doesn't match a confirmation), the message is flagged, creating a task in your platform for a pediatric nurse to review and respond personally.
• Once the "Childhood Immunisation" appointment is completed in your platform, the system automatically schedules the trigger for the next required immunisation series.

Benefits of adding preventative care reminders to your EHR platform

By automating preventative care reminders, EHR platforms can drive real value for healthcare practices:

Increase appointment revenue: Drive a consistent flow of high-value preventative care appointments by automating outreach at scale. Move beyond manual phone calls to systematically engage your entire patient population, filling schedules and boosting revenue without adding administrative overhead.

Boost staff efficiency: Eliminate the repetitive, time-consuming task of manually identifying and contacting patients due for care. Automating the reminder process frees up administrative staff to focus on higher-value activities and delivering exceptional in-person patient service.

Improve patient care compliance: Systematically reach every patient with personalised, automated reminders for crucial screenings and check-ups. By leveraging unique patient data from your platform, you ensure timely and relevant outreach, closing gaps in care and fostering a proactive approach to patient health.

How to embed preventative care reminders in your EHR

So, you're convinced of the value. How do you actually embed preventative care reminders 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. This approach is often referred to as headless patient engagement, where a powerful backend engine for communication and workflow automation is seamlessly integrated into your EHR's existing user interface (the "head").

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: Your white label patient engagement engine

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 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 patient engagement API allows 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.

Implementing preventative care reminders with Aperture by Pendula

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

Recipe: Proactive mammogram screening

• Trigger: Webhook Trigger
  
  • This flow will be initiated when your EHR platform sends a real-time data payload to a unique Pendula URL.
  • Action by EHR: Configure your EHR to run a scheduled daily or weekly report that identifies all female patients aged 40+ whose last mammogram date is more than 23 months ago. The output of this report should be sent as a JSON payload to the Pendula Webhook URL.
  • Pendula Configuration:
    
    • Copy the "POST URL" from the Webhook Trigger node and use it as the destination for your EHR's automated report.
    • In the 'Merge Fields' tab of the trigger node, paste a sample JSON payload from your EHR. This will make patient data like firstName, email, and mobile available as merge fields in the rest of the flow.
• Action: Outbound Email
  
  • Recipient: Use the {{email}} merge field from the webhook trigger.
  • Email Body: Draft an email explaining the importance of regular mammograms. Use the email builder to include three distinct call-to-action buttons or links:
    
    • A "Book Now" link pointing to a booking page.
    • A "Request a Callback" link pointing to a page that will trigger a task in your EHR.
    • An "I've Already Been Screened" link pointing to a form.
  • Outcomes: Configure the outcomes for email delivery. Set the wait time for the 'Sent' path to 7 days to handle the "no interaction" scenario.

Branch

• Path: Click "Book Now"
  
  • This action is initiated when the patient clicks the link and completes a booking on the external page. The booking system should then trigger an API call to your EHR platform to update the patient's record.
  • End Point: Configure End point
    
    • Name the end point "Booking Complete". This marks the successful completion of the journey for this patient and exits them from the flow.
• Path: Click "Request a Callback"
  
  • Clicking this link directs the user to a confirmation page which triggers a web request.
  • Action: Make a web request
    
    • Method: POST.
    • API Endpoint URL: The API endpoint for your EHR platform to create tasks.
    • Request Body: Include the {{patientId}} and {{firstName}} from the webhook payload to create a task for an administrative user to call the patient.
  • End Point: Configure End point
    
    • Name the end point "Callback Task Created".
• Path: Click "Already Screened"
  
  • Clicking this link directs the user to a form to input their recent screening date. The form submission triggers a web request.
  • Action: Make a web request
    
    • Method: POST.
    • API Endpoint URL: The API endpoint for your EHR platform to create tasks.
    • Request Body: Include the {{patientId}} and the submitted screening date to create a task for a user to review and update the patient's record in the EHR.
  • End Point: Configure End point
    
    • Name the end point "Screening Update Task Created".
• Path: No Interaction (Sent)
  
  • This path is followed if the Outbound Email node outcome is 'Sent', meaning there was no open or click registered within the configured 7-day wait period.
  • Action: Outbound SMS
    
    • Recipient: Use the {{mobile}} merge field from the webhook trigger.
    • Message Body: Send a gentle follow-up: "Hello {{firstName}}, this is a friendly reminder from your provider. Please check your email for an important message regarding your routine health screenings."
  • End Point: Configure End point
    
    • Name the end point "Follow-Up SMS Sent".
• Path: Email Rejected
  
  • This path is followed if the email bounces or fails to be delivered.
  • Action: Make a web request
    
    • Method: POST.
    • API Endpoint URL: The API endpoint for your EHR platform to create tasks.
    • Request Body: Create a task for an administrative user to verify the patient's email address on file in the EHR.
  • End Point: Configure End point
    
    • Name the end point "Email Bounced - Task Created".

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

Take the next step with Aperture by Pendula

Interested in white-labelling Aperture by Pendula to quickly and easily embed preventative care reminders in your EHR platform?