Appointment status

Appointments typically move through a series of states, which are called the Appointment Status in this data collection. Possible values for the Appointment Status are:

• Available
• Booked
• Cancelled
• Attended/Seen
• DNA (meaning, did not attend)

Appointments in the past at the point data is collected from the system should not have the status ‘Booked’, rather the appropriate final status that indicates whether a patient was seen or not or if the appointment remained available.

To reduce the number of booked appointments that do not transition into a final status of ‘Attended/Seen’, ‘DNA’ or ‘Cancelled’ follow the guidance below.

Face-to-face appointments

Ensure that, when using the appointment book, there is a command to change the status of the appointment. For example, for a face-to-face appointment, it would be arrive/send in/left.

This is on a right click of the mouse and under 'change slot status'.

Telephone calls

Ensure that:

• all appointments are set as 'START CALL' as the patient enters or answers the telephone call
• all appointments that have started are then closed and set to 'TELEPHONE CONVERSATION COMPLETED' as the patient leaves or disconnects from the telephone call

Video calls

Ensure that:

• all appointments are set as 'PATIENT ARRIVED/SEND PATIENT IN' as the patient enters or answers the video call
• all appointments that have started are then closed and set to 'PATIENT HAS LEFT' as the patient leaves or disconnects from the video call

For both telephone and video calls, ensure that all appointments in the past have a correct final status that indicates whether the patient was seen or not.

To prevent booked appointments from remaining as ‘Booked’ when their status should be ‘DNA’, we recommend that practices configure the system to automatically mark unattended appointments as DNA overnight.

You can configure the DNA status so that a patient is automatically marked as DNA after a specific time and an alert will be displayed after a specific number of DNAs.

The automatic DNA option can be switched on within the DNA Management setting.

You can configure the DNA settings for your practice. 

1. Select 'Enable automatic DNA' and type the number of minutes that must elapse before an appointment is automatically marked as DNA.
2. In the Patient Alert field, type in the number of times that a patient must DNA to generate an alert - that will prompt the user to raise a safeguarding concern.
3. Click to select Days, Weeks, Months or Years, and type in the required number. For example, 2 in the last 4 weeks.
4. Beside the DNA Reasons field, click the magnifying glass icon and select the required reason.
5. Select all the reason(s) you want to add to the list and click 'OK'.
6. Select the required reason to be the default reason and click 'Make Default'.
7. The default reason is the clinical term (SNOMED code) added to the patient's care record for automatic DNA. You can run a protocol to detect DNAs.

If required, select 'Allow auto DNA' on the slot type.

Slots of status type telephone or visit do not have the auto DNA option. The healthcare professional (HCP) will need to ensure the status changes during the consultation.

1. Access Appointment Book.
2. In the navigation pane, use the calendar to select the required date.
3. Select the required session.
4. Right click the required telephone appointment slot, point to 'Change slot status' and then select 'Start call'. 
5. Complete the consultation screen in the usual way.
6. At the end of the telephone consultation click 'Save', file the details and mark the appointment slot as completed on the Appointment Book screen.

Please refer to when updating the appointment status.