Managing episodes as a secretary
How the i-consult secretary view works: see episodes for the clinicians you're associated with, use the clinician filter, and create episodes on a doctor's behalf.
If you book appointments for one or more clinicians, i-consult gives you an optional secretary view. When you log in you see the patient episodes for every clinician you're associated with, so you can check progress, add a patient on a doctor's behalf, and resend a questionnaire link if a patient hasn't engaged, all from one dashboard.
You don't have to use this view at all. Patient episodes are usually created automatically when your appointments sync from your EMR, so most practices never need a secretary to open i-consult day to day. The secretary view is here for practices that want extra oversight or hands-on control.
What you'll see when you log in
Your view is the same Dashboard a clinician sees, with one difference: it spans every clinician you're associated with, and it adds a Clinician column so you can tell at a glance whose appointment each episode belongs to.
The episode table shows:
- Patient: the patient's name.
- Clinician: which doctor the episode belongs to (secretary view only).
- Appointment Date: when the patient is booked in.
- Status: where the episode is up to. See What the episode statuses mean for what each label means.
- Clinical Focus: the focus area for that episode.
Above the table you'll find the Create Patient Episode button, a search box (Search by patient name...), and the filters described below.
Focus on one clinician with the clinician filter
By default the dashboard shows episodes for all of your associated clinicians at once. To narrow the list to a single doctor, for example to scan one clinician's upcoming appointments, use the clinician filter.
On the Dashboard, find the clinician filter. When nothing is selected it reads All Clinicians.
Open it and tick the clinician (or clinicians) you want to see. The filter then shows how many you've picked, for example 2 clinicians selected.
The episode list updates to show only the episodes for those clinicians.
To go back to seeing everyone, reopen the filter and clear your selection, or use Clear Filters to reset the clinician filter, the status filter, and the search box together.
You can combine the clinician filter with the Status filter (All Statuses / Pending / Completed / Declined / Under Review) and the patient-name search to find a specific episode quickly.
Adding a patient: choosing who the episode is for
When you create an episode manually, the secretary view adds one extra step at the top of the form that clinicians don't see: a Creating Episode For section, where you pick which clinician the episode belongs to.
Choosing the clinician here matters. It's what tells i-consult whose defaults to apply (consultation time, focus level, send timing) and whose name the patient sees on their questionnaire. For the full walkthrough, see Add a patient on a clinician's behalf.
What you can and can't see (access control)
You only ever see episodes for the clinicians you're explicitly associated with. You won't see episodes for doctors you don't manage, and another practice's secretary won't see yours.
If a clinician you expect to manage isn't appearing in the Clinician column or the clinician filter, you're probably not associated with them yet. Associations are set up through i-scribe, so ask your practice administrator to associate you with that clinician.
Related articles
- Add a patient on a clinician's behalf: the step-by-step manual-add workflow.
- Resending a questionnaire link: resend the SMS when a patient hasn't engaged.
- What the episode statuses mean: what Pending, Completed, Declined and Under Review tell you.
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