2. Quickstart: Learn the Scheduler in 5 Minutes

Step One: Run sam

You can run sam from within several programs, such as Patient Checkin (checkin). You can also run sam directly by selecting the Patient Scheduler option from your Daily Operations window (shown below) or by typing sam at a UNIX prompt.

Step Two: Find a Patient

If you have not carried over a patient from another program, the next step is to find a patient. Follow the instructions on your screen. Finding a patient in sam is identical to finding a patient in any other program.

Step Three: View Demographics, Other Tools

Once you have found your patient, the screen will show you patient information and allow you to enter the type of appointment you wish to schedule.

Notice that from this screen you can press [F2 - inquire] to view or cancel the patient's current and previous appointments. You can also add a relative using [F5 -- Next Relation], or jump to the checkin screen to perform other functions by pressing [F6 -- Demographics].

Step Four: Enter Appointment Information

At the top of the screen, enter the visit reason, provider, location and time frame for the appointment. You can move among the fields by hitting the ENTER key or the TAB key. Here are some helpful tips:

• An example visit reason for an appointment today might be a "sick" visit. Your office has its own list of visit reasons; use an asterisk (*) to select from that list.

• The initial of each patient's primary care provider (PCP) appears next to the provider box. If the patient is not assigned a PCP, you will see a dash (-).

• For the Time Frame, enter the time you would like to start looking for an appointment opening. You can enter a time ("10:00am" or "2pm") or a date ("10/25/04" or "Oct 25"). The Time Frame field also understands days of the week, names of months, and many other things that a person needing an appointment is likely to say: "mondays," "afternoon," "in 1 month," and "asap" are all time frames. See the rest of the manual for more details about time frames.

• If you leave the Time Frame boxes blank, sam will look for the first available time in the next four days that the selected provider has available time.

• If you are trying to schedule an appointment for today, just use the word "today" or "sick" as your time frame. sam will find you available times for today only.

Step Five: Press [F1 -- Schedule]

When you hit F1, the computer will take the information you have entered and find the best available times.

Step Six: Choose the Best Time for the Patient

On the resulting page, you will see a calendar grid showing dates and times based on the information you entered. The best matches for the criteria you entered are in the middle row, which is highlighted. The earliest date and time available are highlighted for you, in the middle of the left-most column, ready to be confirmed. In the example below, 3:15pm on September 16th with Dr. Kotter is selected. Press [F1 -- Schedule Appt] to start confirming the selected time.

If the patient wants a different time than the one selected automatically, you can use the right and left arrow keys to move among the columns. The middle row shows you at least four available times, and if you arrow off the screen to the right your view will shift to show you the next available date. You can jump down to the next available appointment within each column by pressing [F4 -- Next Available].

If you need to change your time frame, provider, location, or visit reason, simply press [F2 -- New Time Frame] and revise the visit criteria you entered in Step Four.

Step Seven: Confirm the Appointment

Once you have chosen an appointment slot by selecting its box, press [F1 -- Schedule Appt] to start the confirmation process. If you choose the wrong time by mistake, you can still press F12 to return to the previous screen.

On the confirmation screen, you will see complete appointment information so you can confirm it with the patient a final time. Follow the instructions on the screen to add notes about the visit, and then press [F1 -- Confirm Appt] to finalize the appointment.

Until you press [F1 -- Confirm Appt], the appointment is not made. If you press [F12], you will be returned to the Normal View to make a different selection.

Step Eight: There is No Step Eight!

You have made the appointment. If the appointment is scheduled for today, an encounter form will print out immediately.

What do you want to do next? You can enter a new patient name and continue scheduling. If you want to check your work on the visit you just made, you can press [F2 -- Use Last Patient] and then press [F2 -- Inquire]. Finally, you can quit sam by pressing [F12].