HealthCareHP Scheduler Help

Documentation for BHCHP

PLEASE NOTE: This is a demo website for collaborative software development. It is not operated by BHCHP. It does not represent the views or plans of BHCHP or of any healthcare provider. This software-development attempt does not imply any commitment to use this software at a later time for the delivery of healthcare to any person.

This effort uses a web app (named booked) that is intended for any type of resource management, and is not customized for bed management or other healthcare tasks. However, by using this web app in the specific ways described below, it can effectively organize the patients, beds, and other items such as dispatch vehicles. The web app can be accessed simultaneously by all staff supporting BHCHP. A PC, Mac, or mobile device can be used. (There is currently no mobile app, and thus persons with mobile devices must use a web browser such as Safari.)

Three of the most important concepts in the web app are:

  • Users are any persons known to the application, regardless of whether they are patients or staff. Staff are able to login, whereas patients are not able to log in. However, each patient is considered a unique user so that they can be managed.
  • Resources are currently of two types: beds and dispatch vehicles.
  • Reservations are, in most cases, the assignments of patients to beds. (They could also be assignments of staff persons to dispatch vehicles.)

Here are the processes for adding Users and Resources.

  • Use Application Management>Users (with the ellipsis icon in the upper right) to add a patient (e.g., a homeless person) or staff person. Choose Add User. See the examples on the main Application Management>Users page.
    • For a patient, the Username should contain the Date of Birth in the form dobYYYY-MM-DD plus any additional characters to make it unique. (You will know that additional characters are needed because the error message That user name is already registered occurs upon an attempt to use dobYYYY-MM-DD for a second person with the same Date of Birth.)
    • The Password field should contain any random characters (with six or more letters). Patient passwords do NOT need to be known or recorded (a patient, or anyone entered with a dobYYYY-MM-DD Username, cannot ever log into the application).
    • The Email field is not used for email communication (the application does not transmit or receive email messages) but should have the form dobYYYY-MM-DD@example.com for a patient so that the Date of Birth is visible on all application screens.
    • Perhaps by convention, the Organization field of a patient lists their Emergency Contact Person (if any), whereas the Position field has their status (COVID+ if they are positive for COVID-19, or COVID? if COVID-19 test results are pending) and BRIEFLY describes what the patient presented with. Do not exceed the number of characters available in a box.

    There are permission considerations for staff accounts. For example, these steps could be used for each staff account:

    • The Username of a staff account should NOT have the dobYYYY-MM-DD format. One reasonable convention is to use the same Username that the person uses elsewhere (e.g., at BMC).
    • Choose a password that other persons would not easily guess.
    • Provide correct data for each field of a staff account, such as valid email addresses.
    • After creating a staff account, locate it on the Application Management>Users page.
    • Go to the rightmost column, named Actions.
    • Choose Groups.
    • Add the person to every group by clicking the green arrow to the left of each group name.
    • The new staff person will then immediately have access to use all parts of the application.

  • Use Application Management>Resources to add beds. Choose Add Resource or Import Resources. A bed may typically be named by using its geographical location within Boston, the tent number, and the bed number. With Add Resource, one bed is added at a time. To use Import Resources, make a list of bed names in Excel, use File>Save As within Excel to create a document of the type CSV (Comma delimited) (*.csv), and then use Choose File (on the web app's Import screen) to enter many beds (e.g., hundreds) all at once.

To assign a patient to a bed:

  • Go to Schedule>Find A Time.
  • Click Find A Time (shown in green).
  • Choose any bed that has no reservation (at this stage, you would typically not choose a Dispatch Vehicle).
  • The time chosen should be the approximate time of when the patient's bed assignment will start. The duration of the bed assignment is handled later.
  • Click at the spot that lists the bed and time.
  • On the New Reservation form, go to the Participant List section (upper right).
  • Click on Users.
  • Click the green arrow to the left of the patient's name.
  • Click Done.
  • Notice that the patient is now listed as a Participant. You will use this Participant record in the next step.
  • Next, copy and paste the patient's name and Date of Birth into the Title of reservation field:
    • On desktop and laptop computers, you can see a patient's full data by placing your mouse over the name within the Participant section.
    • On iOS (e.g., an iPad), you must tap on the name within the Participant section to see this data.
  • The pasted text will have a format similar to: Firstname Lastname dobYYYY-MM-DD@example.com
  • Go to the upper right to adjust the initial duration values, such as the End time.
  • Typically, the Begin value would be the current day and time, whereas End is simply a worst-case guess (e.g., one year from today).
  • Click Create in the lower right.
  • That patient is now assigned to a bed. That bed is no longer available under Find A Time.
  • Go to Application Management>Users and find the newly assigned patient.
  • Click on the word Active (in the Status column, which is column 9), It will change to Inactive. This means that the patient is not currently waiting for a bed.

To list all bed assignments:

  • Choose Schedule>Search Reservations.
  • Ensure that the upper left box is blank (it should NOT have the name of an admin or staff person).
  • All other boxes should also be blank if you wish to obtain the complete list.
  • Click on Search Reservations (shown in green).

When a patient permanently stops using a bed:

  • Click on the reservation (see the above To list all bed assignments information).
  • In the lower right, choose More and then choose Delete.
  • Enter a reason such as pt went to a relative's home.
  • Click on Delete.
  • That bed now shows up as available under Find A Time.

Generic non-BHCHP documentation

Registration

Registration is required in order to use HealthCareHP Scheduler. After your account has been registered you will be able to log in and access any resources that you have permission to.

Booking

Under the Schedule menu item you will find the Bookings item. This will show you the available, reserved and blocked slots on the schedule and allow you to book resources that you have permission to.

On the Bookings page, find the resource, date and time you'd like to book. Clicking on the time slot will allow you change the details of the reservation. Clicking the Create button will check availability, book the reservation and send out any emails. You will be given a reference number to use for reservation follow-up.

Any changes made to a reservation will not take effect until you save the reservation.

By default, only Application Administrators can create reservations in the past.

Find A Time

Under Schedule there is an option to Find A Time. This gives you the ability to search for any available slot that meets your criteria.

Multiple Resources

You can book all resources that you have permission as part of a single reservation. To add more resources to your reservation, click the More Resources link, displayed next to the name of the primary resource you are reserving. You will then able to add more resources by selecting them and clicking the Done button.

To remove additional resources from your reservation, click the More Resources link, deselect the resources you want to remove, and click the Done button.

Additional resources will be subject to the same rules as primary resources. For example, this means that if you attempt to create a 2 hour reservation with Resource 1, which has a maximum length of 3 hours and with Resource 2, which has a maximum length of 1 hour, your reservation will be denied.

You can view the configuration details of a resource by hovering over the resource name.

Recurring Dates

A reservation can be configured to recur a number of different ways.

The repeat options allow for flexible recurrence possibilities. For example: Repeat Daily every 2 days will create a reservation every other day for your specified time. Repeat Weekly, every 1 week on Monday, Wednesday, Friday will create a reservation on each of those days every week at your specified time. If you were creating a reservation on 2011-01-15, repeating Monthly, every 3 months on the day of month would create a reservation every third month on the 15th. Since 2011-01-15 is the third Saturday of January, the same example with the day of week selected would repeat every third month on the third Saturday of that month.

Additional Participants

You can either Add Participants or Invite Others when booking a reservation. Adding someone will include them on the reservation and will not send an invitation. The added user will receive an email.

Inviting a user will send an invitation email and give the user an option to Accept or Decline the invitation. Accepting an invitation adds the user to the participants list. Declining an invitation removes the user from the invitees list.

The total number of participants is limited by the resource's participant capacity.

Accessories

Accessories can be thought of as objects used during a reservation. Examples may be projectors or chairs. To add accessories to your reservation, click the Add link to the right of the Accessories title. From there you will be able to select a quantity for each of the available accessories. The quantity available during your reservation time will depend on how many accessories are already reserved.

Booking on behalf of others

Application Administrators and Group Administrators can book reservations on behalf of other users by clicking the Change link to the right of the user's name.

Application Administrators and Group Administrators can also modify and delete reservations owned by other users.

Updating a Reservation

You can update any reservation that you have created or that was created on your behalf.

Updating Specific Instances From a Series

If a reservation is set up to repeat, then a series is created. After you make changes and Update the reservation, you will be asked which instances of the series you want to apply the changes to. You can apply your changes to the instance that you are viewing (Only This Instance) and no other instances will be changed. You can update All Instances to apply the change to every reservation instance that has not yet occurred. You can also apply the change only to Future Instances, which will update all reservation instances including and after the instance you are currently viewing.

Only Application Administrators can update reservations in the past.

Deleting a Reservation

Deleting a reservation completely removes it from the schedule. It will no longer be visible anywhere in HealthCareHP Scheduler

Deleting Specific Instances From a Series

Similar to updating a reservation, when deleting you can select which instances you want to delete.

Only Application Administrators can delete reservations in the past.

Email Notifications

can send you email notifications for different events. You can turn notifications on or off in My Account > Notification Preferences.

Credits

Credits give administrators control over resource usage. A resource may be configured to consume a certain number of credits per slot. If you don't have enough credits, you will not be allowed to complete a booking. You can view your credit usage in the Credits section of My Account

Paying for Reservation Usage

Reservations can be paid for using credits. If you do not have enough credits to complete a reservation, you can purchase credits in the Credits section of My Account. You can also view your purchase history and credit usage history in the Credits section of My Account.

Adding a Reservation to Calendar (Outlook®, iCal, Mozilla Lightning, Evolution)

When viewing or updating a reservation you will see a button to Add to Outlook. If Outlook is installed on your computer then you should be asked to add the meeting. If it is not installed you will be prompted to download an .ics file. This is a standard calendar format. You can use this file to add the reservation to any application that supports the iCalendar file format.

Subscribing to Calendars

You can easily display HealthCareHP Scheduler events in external calendars like Microsoft Outlook and Google Calendar. To do this, you subscribe to calendars.

Calendars can be published for Schedules, Resources and Users. For this feature to work, the administrator must have configured a subscription key in the config file. To enable Schedule and Resource level calendar subscriptions, simply allow public visibility when managing the Schedule or Resource. To turn on personal calendar subscriptions, open Schedule > My Calendar. On the right side of the page you will find a link to Allow or Turn Off calendar subscriptions.

To subscribe to a Schedule calendar, open Schedule > Resource Calendar and select the schedule you want. On the right side of the page, you will find a link to subscribe to the current calendar. Subscribing the a Resource calendar follows the same steps.

To subscribe to your personal calendar, open Schedule > My Calendar. On the right side of the page, you will find a link to subscribe to the current calendar.

By default events for the next 30 will be returned. This can be customized with the following two query string parameters on the subscription URL. pastDayCount and futureDayCount will override the past and future number of days loaded, respectively.

Calendar client (Outlook, iCal, Mozilla Lightning, Evolution)

In most cases, simply clicking the Subscribe to this Calendar link will automatically set up the subscription in your calendar Client. For Outlook, if it does not automatically add, open the Calendar view, then right click My Calendars and choose Add Calendar > From Internet. Paste in the URL printed under the Subscribe to this Calendar link.

Google Calendar

Open Google Calendar settings. Click the Calendars tab. Click Browse interesting calendars. Click add by URL. Paste in the URL printed under the Subscribe to this Calendar link.

Embedding a Calendar Externally

This requires CORS to be enabled on your server. You can add the following to your Apache htaccess file Header Set Access-Control-Allow-Origin "*"

It is simple to include a view of a Booked calendar in an external website. Copy and paste the following JavaScript reference to your website <script async src="https://healthcarehp.org/scripts/embed-calendar.js" crossorigin="anonymous"></script>

The following querystring arguments are accepted to customize the embedded view:

Name Possible Values Default Details
type agenda, week, month agenda Controls the view that is shown
format date, title, user, resource date Controls the information shown in the reservation box. Multiple options can be passed. For example, to show date and title request date,title
d Any digit between 1 and 30 7 Limits the number of days shown for the agenda view
sid Any schedule public ID All schedules Limits the reservations shown to a specific schedule
rid Any resource public ID All resources Limits the reservations shown to a specific resource

Only calendars and resources that have been marked as public will be shown. If reservations are missing from a schedule or resource, it is likely that public visibility has not been turned on.

Quotas

Administrators have the ability to configure quota rules based on a variety of criteria. If your reservation would violate any quota, you will be notified and the reservation will be denied.

Waiting For Availability

If a time is not available you can sign up to be notified if it becomes available. This option will be shown after a reservation attempt is made.