Patient Messaging
Staying in touch with your patients in between visits is often essential. Checking in with them needs to be frictionless for your clinicians.
What you’ll learn #
In this guide, you will learn how to do the following:
- Send messages to patients
- Write patient messages to Canvas
- Use Questionnaires to check in
Send messages to patients #
The messaging workflow in Canvas allows clinicians to generate an outbound message using free text or templates. Use the notification protocol below to know when a message has been created. The protocol below uses a FHIR call to read all of the attributes of the message created in Canvas so that you can deliver it to your patients and/or their authorized contacts.
import json
from canvas_workflow_kit.constants import CHANGE_TYPE
from canvas_workflow_kit.protocol import (STATUS_NOT_APPLICABLE,
ClinicalQualityMeasure,
ProtocolResult)
from canvas_workflow_kit.utils import send_notification
import requests
from canvas_workflow_kit.fhir import FumageHelper
class MessageNotification(ClinicalQualityMeasure):
class Meta:
title = 'Message Notification'
version = 'v0.0.1'
description = 'Listens for message submission and sends a notification.'
types = ['Notification']
compute_on_change_types = [CHANGE_TYPE.MESSAGE]
notification_only = True
def get_fhir_communication(self, message_id):
""" Given a Communication ID we can perform a FHIR Communication Search Request"""
fhir = FumageHelper(self.settings)
response = fhir.search("Communication", {'_id:': message_id})
if response.status_code != 200:
raise Exception(f"Failed to retrieve FHIR Communicaton with {response.text} {response.headers}")
return response.json()['entry'][0]['resource']
def compute_results(self):
result = ProtocolResult()
result.status = STATUS_NOT_APPLICABLE
if self.field_changes['model_name'] == 'messagetransmission':
canvas_id = self.field_changes.get('fields', {}).get('message_id', None)
if canvas_id:
message = self.patient.messages.filter(id=canvas_id[1]).records
if message:
message_id = message[-1]['externallyExposableId']
fhir_record = self.get_fhir_communication(message_id)
if fhir_record['sender']['reference'].startswith("Practitioner"):
# REPLACE this url with your server url which should receive these notifications
send_notification(
'https://webhook.site/0a8f7cb1-fcc5-421c-8a99-9c87533cf678',
json.dumps(fhir_record),
headers={'Content-Type': 'application/json'})
return result
Write patient messages to Canvas #
Patient responses can be written to Canvas using the FHIR Communication Create endpoint. They can be assigned to a user through the recipient attribute using a practitioner ID. They will appear in the messages inbox in Canvas.
All users in Canvas have a practitioner ID, not just clinicians. By default the FHIR Practitioner Search endpoint will return clinician’s that can be scheduled, however, you can include the includes non-schedulable practitioners query param to return all staff members.
Use questionnaires to check in #
You may also want to use a simpler questionnaire to capture data points such as mood, anxiety level, or side effects on a more frequent basis. If you collect this data through your patient-facing application, the FHIR QuestionnaireResponse Create endpoint would allow you to write it to Canvas in a structured way that can be leveraged in reporting or used in protocols.
