The front desk

Back to the guide

This page is for the receptionist and the nurse. The admin can do everything here too.

The start of the day

Open your cash drawer

The bar at the top of the Booking desk is your drawer.

1. Count the cash in the drawer.
2. Press Open the drawer, type the amount and confirm.

Cash you take during the day is added to it by the system. You will count it again when you finish.

Look at “Needs your attention”

This card lists what is waiting for you:

• Online booking requests. A patient asked for a time on the clinic’s booking page. Press Approve, or Decline request.
• Bank transfers to confirm. A patient said they paid by transfer. Check the clinic’s bank account. If the money is there, press Confirm transfer. If it is not, press Not received.
• Visits from earlier days that were never closed. Finish or cancel each one.

Print the day list

Press Day list for each doctor and print it. If the power or internet fails, you still know who is coming.

Booking an appointment

On the Booking desk:

1. Pick a doctor. The doctors are the row of buttons at the top. The fee appears in the booking form.
2. Pick a day. The next 14 days are shown with the number of free times on each. Use the date box for any other day.
3. Pick a free time. Each button is a free time with that doctor.
4. Choose the patient. Type a name, phone number or record number. If the patient is new, register them from the same form.
5. Choose the visit type, such as first visit or follow-up, if the clinic has more than one.
6. Choose how they pay: cash now, a bank transfer, or on arrival.
7. Press Book appointment.

A bank transfer counts as paid only after you confirm the money arrived.

A patient who walks in without a booking

1. Press Walk-in.
2. Choose the doctor and the patient, and give a short reason.
3. Take the payment.

A walk-in can be added even when no time is free. The patient takes the next token and waits in the same queue as booked patients.

When the patient arrives

Find the visit in the day’s appointments, the list under the booking form.

1. If the visit is not paid yet, press Take cash, or record the transfer.
2. Press Check in.

The patient is given a token number, in order of arrival, and a token slip opens to print. The doctor now sees the patient as waiting.

A patient cannot be checked in until the visit is paid and any transfer is confirmed. This is on purpose, so no fee is ever chased afterwards.

Taking vitals

Vitals are the measurements taken before the doctor sees the patient: blood pressure, pulse, temperature, oxygen, breathing rate, weight, height and blood sugar.

A nurse has a sign-in that opens only this screen. In a clinic with no nurse, the receptionist takes vitals from the same screen.

1. Open Vitals from the menu. It lists every patient checked in today. Those still to be measured are at the top, in token order. The list refreshes by itself.
2. Check the name. A patient’s allergies show in red under it.
3. Press Record vitals.
4. Fill in what you measured. Leave a box empty if you did not measure it.
   • Blood pressure needs both numbers, the upper and the lower.
   • Temperature can be typed in Fahrenheit or Celsius. Choose the unit beside the box; the screen remembers your choice.
   • For blood sugar, say whether it was fasting, random or after a meal.
   • Add a short note for the doctor if something needs saying.
5. Press Save vitals.

The patient moves down the list and shows Done. The doctor sees the readings at once.

Earlier readings, on the right, shows what was measured for that patient before. Look at it before you save: a reading very different from last time may be a typing mistake.

If a number looks impossible, such as a pulse of 500, the screen will not accept it. Check and type it again.

A reading cannot be edited. If you typed it wrongly or for the wrong patient, press Strike out beside it, under the earlier readings on the right, and take it again. Only the person who took a reading, or the admin, can strike it out. The desk and the doctor can also do this from the Vitals card on the patient’s record, under Every reading.

A nurse cannot open the accounts, the pharmacy, or a doctor’s notes and prescriptions.

Receipts

Press Receipt on a paid visit to print it. The first print is the original. Any later print is marked Duplicate copy, and the system keeps count.

Discounts

1. Press Discount on an unpaid visit.
2. Choose a percentage of the fee, or an amount.
3. Choose the reason: regular patient, needy patient, staff member or family, follow-up visit, or other.
4. Confirm.

You can give a discount up to the limit the clinic has set for the desk. Above that, the admin gives it.

Changing a booking

Each visit in the day’s list has these actions:

When a paid patient does not show up, the fee is refunded unless the admin presses Keep fee. Keeping a fee is the admin’s decision, not the desk’s.

The end of the day

1. Count the cash in your drawer.
2. Press Close the drawer and type what you counted.

The system compares your count with what it expected. Any difference is recorded against the shift, so count carefully.

Patients

Open Patients from the menu.

Find a patient

Type a name, a phone number or a record number in the search box and press Enter. Click a row to open the patient’s record.

Register a new patient

1. Press Register patient.
2. Fill in the name and phone number. Add what you know of the rest: gender, date of birth, or age when the date of birth is not known, father’s or husband’s name, an emergency contact, blood group, national ID and address.
3. Save.

The patient is given the next record number. If someone with the same name and phone is already on file, the system tells you instead of making a second record.

Change a patient’s details

Open the record and press Edit on the Details card.

A patient forgot their online booking password

Open the record. Under Details, set a new password for online booking and tell the patient what it is.

Bring in an existing patient list

Press Import on the Patients screen.

1. Download the template and fill it in, one patient on each row.
2. Choose the file. The system shows a preview and lists any row with a problem.
3. Fix the problems in the file if you need to, then apply.

Anyone already on file is skipped.

Follow-ups

Open Follow-ups from the menu. It has two lists.

Due back

These are patients a doctor asked to return. The most overdue are at the top. Each line shows the phone number and what the doctor wants you to tell the patient.

1. Ring the patient.
2. If they want to come, book them on the Booking desk.
3. Back on the list, choose how it ended from Take off the list: booked a visit, already seen, could not reach, or no longer needed.

“Already booked” appears when the patient has a visit coming with that doctor.

Results to type in

These are tests a doctor ordered that have no result yet. When the patient brings the report back:

1. Click the patient’s name to open their record.
2. In Tests and results, press Enter result beside the test.
3. Type the value, or the wording of the report, exactly as the report shows it.
4. Save.

The doctor is told the result has come in. If you misread the report, press Correct and type it again.

What the front desk cannot see

The desk never sees a doctor’s notes, prescriptions or letters, and never sees the clinic’s accounts. The desk does see a patient’s allergies, vitals and test orders, because it needs them to do its job.