Sending SMS texts to patients
Sending SMS texts to patients
In this section you will be shown how to:
· Send texts to your list of patients through NHS Mail
· Recording into EMIS those patients that have been successfully texted
Example of use:
Sometimes it’s more appropriate (and always cheaper!) to send invites to patients’ mobile phones.
PatientChase uses your NHS Mail email account to send texts to any list of patients for free.
Texting patients is particularly good when you’re running campaigns such as flu or smear invites or if you’d like patients to contact the surgery about their smoking status.
Step 1 - Select Texting as the media you will be using
Right click over your search results and select ‘Texting’ under ‘Media to Use for Search’.
This means that you will be sending texts.
Step 2 – Texting your patients
Right click on the search results and select ‘Export Results to Texting Only’.
Click OK.
Step 3 – Decide how many patients in the list to text and pick your message.
By default, PatientChase will send a text to all the patients in the list with a mobile number.
If you would prefer to define how many patients in the list to send a text to, type in that number and click OK.
Next, select Texting Default Message.doc to pick the message that will be sent to patients.
Click OK.
Step 4 – Patient Consent
A message appears about patient consent. Make sure that you read the message and only proceed if applicable.
Click to continue.
Step 5 – Email address message
If you already have defined the NHS Mail email address that your texts will be sent from, skip to Step 6.
If you receive the above message please go to Advanced>Options>Exchange and enter the NHS Mail address that texts will be sent from. Typically, this email address is your practice’s main email address, e..g. .
Click Close and return to Step 2.
Step 6 – Creating the message heading and logging in to NHS Mail
Click Yes.
Next, type in a message heading. This will appear as the subject heading in the text to the patient.
Next, log in to NHS Mail.
Enter the NHS Mail address that the text is coming from and enter it’s password. Leave Domain blank.
Click Connect.
The progress bar will appear, sending texts to patients.
Step 7 – Selecting those patients that have been successfully texted
Once PatientChase has finished sending texts, check the NHS Mail inbox for a list of those patients that were successfully texted.
Go back to PatientChase, and select those patients that were successfully sent a text invite.
Do this by holding the CTRL key down and clicking on each patient.
Step 8 – Recording into EMIS those patients that have been successfully texted
Once you’ve made your selection, right click over the patient list and select ‘Insert Selected Patients into EMIS Only’.
This will put a copy of the text message into each patient’s medical record AND insert Read codes for all the conditions they have been texted.
Click OK.
Select Texting Default Message.doc. Click OK.
Select the date you sent the text messages. Click OK.
The progress bar appears, indicating that recording into EMIS is in progress.
The texts you sent patients are now recorded into their medical records.
User Guide v4 Page 5 of 10