Comrad announces launch of Aura Care Connect

April 21, 2021

Comrad is excited to announce the first release of Aura Care Connect, a RIS-driven, web-based patient engagement platform.

The cloud-hosted platform provides the foundation for medical imaging practices deliver an end-to-end digital patient journey for each attendance, from the moment the patient is referred through to completion and delivery of their clinical report.

Available in Aura 1.9, the first release of Aura Care Connect provides the functionality to allow patients to schedule medical imaging appointments online, at their own convenience, into resources and time slots made available by the practice.

From an embedded widget in the medical imaging practice’s website, the booking process is launched in the cloud, with a secure connection back to the integrated COMRAD system. The patient chooses most of the appointment parameters such that it meets their availability and location requirements.

The Online Appointments (OLA) workflow captures important patient information including details about the patient’s requested examination and provides mechanisms for the patient to securely upload an image of their referral. Once uploaded, the entered information is securely stored in the RIS in real time and the appointment is scheduled into the RIS Calendar.

Radiology scheduling is complex and requires a detailed understand of numerous variables including tenancy/site/region booking rules, staff availability/rosters, calendar reserves, resource rosters and room capacity rules, equipment capabilities, adjacent booking rules, exam information/preparation, multiple procedure workflows and patient specific requirements.

As patients cannot be expected to understand the complexities of radiology bookings, Aura Care Connect removes as many barriers as possible that could lead to a patient abandoning the process mid-booking. The platform design has focused on a simple, responsive user interface that seamlessly guides the patient through workflow steps without them needing to understand the complexities of a practice’s scheduling rules.

To support the OLA workflow, an extensive list of features has also been added to COMRAD RIS to provide the ability to configure the behaviour of the application with regard to services offered, available appointment times and information provided to patients. New workflow functionality has been added to extend existing RIS Referral and Appointment workflows to effectively recognise, review and manage the inbound online bookings and call-back requests, while enhancements to existing RIS EMR workflows for improved patient matching provide active alerts to end users. An SMS booking confirmation step is available at the end of the booking process and enhancements to the SMS workflows now allow for full message history to be viewed from the patient file.

Future releases of Aura Care Connect will include:

• Pre-registration workflows – a secure, client branded application allowing patients to complete certain registration tasks before they arrive in the clinic, including the completion of consent forms, updates to demographics, links to find more information about the requested procedure, display a booking summary that includes patient instructions and download a copy of the booking summary to the device’s calendar
• Integration to GP e-Referrals workflows to further automate the patient online booking workflow, and enhancements to the patient booking experience
• Patient self-arrival workflows will allow for patients to complete in-practice registration either from their own device or from a practice device
• Post examination workflows including patient surveys and secure access to view invoices, reports and images

Request a brochure or contact one of our Aura Sales Specialists to find out how Aura Care Connect can transform your medical imaging practice.