This article explains the functionality and benefit of Smart templates in relation to Web Messenger.
On this page:
What are Smart templates?
Web Messenger allows your surgery to send visually rich messages to your patients using Smart templates. With Smart templates you can provide more information, in much more detail, and they are free to send and receive.
Smart templates can be used to provide other healthcare related information to your patients. Public Health England often run health campaigns via TV and radio and provide posters and leaflets for you to put up in your waiting room. However, patients only see this information if they watch TV, listen to radio, or have an appointment with their doctor. You can send the Smart template version of the poster you put up in your waiting room directly to your patient’s phones, so they do not miss it. Even better, they are interactive, you can provide web links, so patients do not have to search.
Smart templates can also obtain information from patients using ‘Response Templates’ for example, keep a patient’s contact details up to date, ask them to consent to a beneficial service, fill in questionnaires, ask them health related questions, allow patients to decline vaccinations or reviews. With Smart templates these patient responses are controlled, which means patients can only give the responses you provide them. A patient cannot misspell a response like they can with text or email messaging, so the margin of error on the patient’s part is significantly reduced.
The purpose of this document is to provide guidance on the different aspects of creating a Smart template, to give some examples, what units you should use when specifying sizes for your images or tables, what should be the minimum resolution of images, creating colourful backgrounds and a framework (using tables) which keeps the template together.
What can Smart be used for?
MJog Smart Messaging can be used for anything text, email and voice messaging can be used for. However, there are many advantages of using Smart:
- Rich, engaging messages
- Unlimited length
- Zero message cost
- Controlled replies
What are controlled replies?
Patients can only respond to Smart messages from their Smartphones if the message includes a 'Response Template'. Response Templates are special templates used to control how a user can respond to a given message. In the case of Smart messages, response templates control the questions and buttons/text boxes presented to the user allowing them to respond. This means when a patient responds you will always get an expected answer.
Each response template consists of one question and one or more answers (either as multiple choice answers or a free text answer). Each Smart message template can include none, or as many response templates as required, allowing multiple questions to be asked and answered.