Encounter Chat is an informal communication tool medical staff members can use to coordinate patient care. Encounter Chat is not meant to be used as a clinical documentation tool, but as a way to have encounter-based conversations from directly in the Encounter Preview slide panel.
Open Encounter Preview from either Patient Tracker, Room Tracker, or Open Encounters. Our example uses Patient Tracker.
Accept the User Agreement
Before you can participate in a chat, you must accept the terms of the user agreement. If you do not accept the terms, you will have read-only access, but will not be able to contribute to the chat. NextGen Office saves your acceptance of the user agreement so you only have to accept the user agreement once.
- When you click inside the message or comment box, you will be prompted to accept the Encounter Chat user agreement.
- Click the I accept the terms of the user agreement checkbox.
- Click Accept.
Post a Message or Comment
- To post a message or a comment, type in the message box and then press Enter/Return.
- To add a comment to a post, type your comment in the comment box and then press Enter/Return.
- Icons display on the Chat column indicating whether an encounter chat has been started for the patient and whether the user is an active participant in the chat.
- The three indicator states are:
- Encounter Chat is not available in signed encounters.
Subscribe/Unsubscribe from Notifications
- When users post a new message or comment in a chat, the notifications option automatically switches to on.
- Click to switch this to off or leave it on to be notified of new posts and comments.
- If you unsubscribe from a chat, you are no longer notified of new chat activity.
Notifications
Users receive notifications when there is a new post or comment in a chat that they are participating in. Click the notification to view the new post or comment in Encounter Chat or dismiss the notification. The notification automatically disappears after a few seconds, and, if you take no action, the notification displays in the Notification Center.
Note: Notifications do not appear on the page if the Notification Center is open. They will only appear in the Notification Center.
- The first time you are about to receive a notification, you are prompted to allow browser notifications. Click Yes.
- You must have your browser allow notifications from NextGen Office when it prompts you (e.g., in Chrome, click Allow).
- A notification displays. Click to view the post or comment.
- The green indicator bounces in the Notification Center every time a new notification arrives. To view the notifications in the Notification Center, click
.
- To view the post or comment, click the notification.
- Encounter Chat opens next to the Notification Center and displays the post or comment.
Additional Information
- The encounter does not have be started for users to participate in an encounter chat.
- The chat is deleted after the encounter is signed or seven days after the chat began.
- You cannot edit or delete a chat.
- The character limit for each post or comment is 2,000 characters.
- Chats are not saved with the encounter summary and are not a part of the patient's chart.
- Chats are not visible to the patient.
- Chats time out after one hour of inactivity.
See Also:
Encounter Preview
Notification Center
: A chat was initiated, but the user is not a participant.
: A chat was initiated and the user is a participant.