To access the Safety Net, click on the Safety Net button located near the upper left corner of your Atlas software. This differs from the Safety Net button located under the Patient profile which we will review later in this manual.
Remember!
The Safety Net is designed to be opened at the start of a shift and left open throughout the day. It is OK to minimize the Safety Net and continue working in Atlas.
The Safety Net is divided into two main sections – ‘Action’ tabs (yellow color) and ‘Status’ tabs (grey color). These sections help organize the Patients in the Safety Net, allowing staff to focus on only the Patients who need call-back/contact on a given day.
REMINDER: The Safety Net does not 'pop-up' at any time to alert staff about a pending follow up. It will organize contact details for easy reference when used properly but it is your responsibility to properly enter Patients information and to review the Safety Net on a regular basis. To expand on the Alert above, open the Safety Net each morning and review and check it periodically throughout the day - and check it at the end of the day for maximum efficiency.
ACTION TABS:
The Action Tabs are colored Yellow in the Safety Net. Patients listed under any of the Action Tabs are pending action from the staff (follow up call, appointment confirmation, etc). To maintain an effective Safety Net, be sure to take action on Patients appearing under those Tabs. The goal is to have no Patients pending contact under the Action tabs - aim to keep these cleared.
The SUMMARY tab displays all of the Patients listed under each Action Tab (No Appt, Missed, Cancelled, Confirm, Other).
- No Appointment: if a Patient leaves the office without scheduling (or having scheduled) a future appointment, Atlas will automatically put that Patient into the Safety Net under this tab. This helps track Patients who leave and think, since they don’t have any more appointments and nobody has asked them to book, they must be ‘cured’. This is especially important when the Patient is in their initial phase of care and has some relief from symptoms. They may leave without setting up another appointment and ‘drop themselves’ out of care.
Atlas will also automatically drop the Patient from the Safety Net if they are put onto the Safety Net for having left without a future appointment AND they schedule one afterwards.
This is the only method by which a Patient will automatically come off the Safety Net.
- Missed: when a Patient appointment is flagged as ‘Missed’ on the schedule, they will show under the Missed tab. (process described later)
- Cancelled: when a Patient appointment is flagged as ‘Cancelled’ on the schedule, they will show under the Cancelled tab. (process described later)
- Confirms: Patients whose profiles are marked as ‘Confirm’ will appear under this tab based on the options configured. (process described later)
- Other: Patients manually added to the Safety Net for ‘clinic-specific’ reasons will appear under this tab. (process described later)
INFO TABS:
The Info Tabs are colored grey in the Safety Net. Patients listed under any Info Tabs are mainly there for reference only. Generally, staff does not need to interact with files currently listed under the Info tabs.
- Future: the Future tab holds the list of Patients added into the Safety Net for contact in the future. For example, Joe cancelled an appointment today and the staff marked him for contact next week to follow up and reschedule. Joe would appear in the Future tab until his scheduled Next Contact date and on that date would automatically move into the appropriate Action Tab (in this case the cancelled tab). This list can grow very large (Patients could be marked for contact months into the future). Normally not reviewed or accessed by staff, however is left in view in case. NOTE: there is an option to not track Patients who leave without booking future Appointments in the System Settings, covered at the end of this manual.
- Inactive: Patients marked as ‘inactive’ (no longer coming into the clinic) through the Safety Net are put into this inactive heading. Not usually accessed by staff.
- Dropped: Patients dropped from the Safety Net – this means Patients who no longer need to be on the Safety Net for their specified reason – are put into this heading. This list will grow very long after time. Dropped Patients will appear back on the Safety Net if they meet some criteria for being put into the Safety Net.
- Do Not Call: some Patients prefer not to be contacted if they miss, cancel or leave without a future appointment. Patients designated as Do Not Recall in the Safety Net will be put into this heading. NOTE: Patients marked Do Not Recall in the Patient profile will not appear in this list.
NOTE: there is an option in the System Settings to Ignore the Patients Do Not Call designation if they cancel or miss an Appointment, covered at the end of the manual.
The Safety Net can be sorted for easier access to the specific Patients you need to contact.
There is a ‘For Provider’ drop down at the top of the Safety Net which filters the Safety Net by the Provider associated with the instance for the Patient being on the Safety Net. Example: A patient has Doctor A as their default provider, but misses an appointment with Doctor B. The Patient will appear on the Safety Net grouped with Doctor B.
To further aid in organizing the Safety Net, at the bottom of the window users can filter the Printed Report from the Safety Net by using the ‘SELECT’ check box in the far right column and selecting a specific Provider.