Patient Communication Policy


Introduction

At Magenta Health, we are committed to providing our patients with accessible and quality care that is responsive to their needs.

We hope to improve the patient experience and streamline the process by which patients communicate with the clinic, while enhancing the reliability and accuracy of communication that is too often lost over the phone. As such, we will be primarily relying upon electronic communications between patients and the clinic. What this means is that, depending on the context, the following communication means will be used, as discussed in more detail below:

  • a secure online appointment scheduling portal;

  • secure online forms; and

  • a secure web messaging portal (where deemed appropriate for care);

  • outgoing e-mail (where deemed appropriate for care)

Notably, use of the secure web portal will likely be mandatory in order to communicate with clinic staff. You are always welcome to book a regular or urgent appointment should you need to speak with your doctor directly.

To be clear, patients who call in will oftentimes be asked to re-direct their query via the appropriate electronic communication channel.

How the Clinic will Contact You

The clinic will be using a mix of different means to contact you, depending on the sensitivity, importance, and nature of the message. This may include occasional phone calls, e-mails, and web portal messages. Notably, we do not plan to send you written letters.

Accordingly, it is your responsibility to ensure that each of the following is up-to-date. You will need to update each separately:

  • The clinic will need to know your up-to-date e-mail address, phone number, and mailing address at all times (see Update Your Contact Information); and

  • Our online scheduling portal, Veribook, will need your up-to-date e-mail address to send you appointment reminders and notification e-mails regarding changes to your appointments (instructions).

We encourage patients to use secure passwords and change their passwords regularly. We also encourage patients not to share their passwords with others, or to allow others to access their e-mail account.

How Patients Should Contact Us

Please consult our patient contact and FAQ page for more information.

More Information

EMAIL
Unfortunately, while convenient, e-mail is not technically a secure communication medium. Accordingly, the clinic will only e-mail you in respect of non-confidential information unless we have your Authorization for Email Communication in respect of your personal health information. For example, we may occasionally send all patients generic e-mail invitations to schedule an appointment for special clinics that we are having (e.g. a flu shot clinic).

We also have a policy to ensure the respectful and effective use of email. Should an individual or group misuse e-mail, for example, by spamming, using disrespectful language, sending us irrelevant and unnecessary information, etc… we reserve the right to configure our system to reject messages. In such circumstances, these individuals will be directed to post messages to us by letter mail. In the case of disrespectful language, we have a zero tolerance policy.

SECURE ONLINE APPOINTMENT SCHEDULING PORTAL
Magenta Health uses Veribook, a Canadian online appointment booking software provider, to enable patients to schedule appointments. This system has been integrated with our electronic medical records system so that we can offer an entirely automated online appointment scheduling system. All available appointments can be scheduled and managed online 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Clinic staff do not have access to any “extra” appointments.

Veribook’s patient technical support pages are available here.

SECURE ONLINE FORMS
In certain situations, we believe a secure online form is the most effective way for you to communicate with us, in these circumstances we ask that you complete the form as completely as possible, and we will follow-up as appropriate.

SECURE WEB MESSAGING PORTAL
Wherever possible, we use a secure messaging portal to communicate with patients.