Messages

Messages is where you talk with colleagues in your practice. Open it from Messages in the sidebar. A violet count next to it shows how many messages addressed to you are still unread.

It is not email, and it is not Help Scout. Messages stay inside BirthTracks, encrypted at rest, and no copy goes out in email.

Conversations

Messages is a two-pane screen:

• The conversation list is on the left, with the most recent activity at the top. Each row shows who the conversation is with, the time of the last message, the start of that message, and a violet count of unread messages.
• The open conversation is on the right: the messages in order, grouped under a date, with the composer at the bottom. Until you choose one, the pane says “Select a conversation to read it.”

There are two kinds of conversation:

• A direct conversation with one colleague. You have one thread with each colleague you message, and only the two of you can read it.
• Entire practice. One shared thread for everyone in the practice who can read Messages. It is marked Everyone at the top of the thread.

Note

In a practice with only one colleague besides you, a message to Entire practice reaches just that one person, so it shows up in your direct conversation with them, not under Entire practice.

When you open a conversation, the messages in it that were sent to you are marked read, and the sidebar count goes down. The screen checks for new messages every 15 seconds, so you don’t need to reload it.

If you have no conversations yet, the list says “No conversations yet”.

Start a conversation

1. Choose New message at the top of the Messages screen.
2. Under To, choose a colleague, or Entire practice to write to everyone. The list starts on “Choose a colleague…”.
3. Choose Start conversation. If you already have a thread with that colleague, it opens. Otherwise you get an empty thread that says “No messages yet. Say hello below.”

If nobody else in the practice can receive messages yet, you see Invite a colleague instead of New message. That button is shown if you can manage the team. Otherwise the screen asks you to have your practice owner invite someone.

Write and send

The composer at the bottom of an open conversation has:

• Tag a patient (optional) — pick the patient the message is about, or leave it on None.
• Message — the box that says “Write a message…”. There is no separate title field. The first line of what you write is what shows in the conversation list.

Choose Send. A “Message sent.” notice appears and the composer clears. The patient tag clears too, so the next message isn’t tagged by mistake.

Tagging a patient

A tagged message shows the patient’s name under it in the thread. Select the name to open that patient’s chart.

You can also start from the chart. The Messages section of a patient chart has Message the team, which opens the Entire practice thread with that patient already tagged. The same section lists the tagged messages you sent or received, and each one has Open, which goes to its conversation.

Who can read and write

• Admin and Provider can read their own conversations and write new messages.
• Viewer can read their own conversations but can’t write: there is no New message button and no composer.
• Scribe is a write-only role and can’t open Messages at all.

For everyone, “your conversations” means only the messages you sent or received. You can’t read a direct conversation between two other colleagues, even if it tags a patient whose chart you can see.

Privacy

What you write and the patient you tag are protected health information. They stay inside your practice: no other practice can see them, and BirthTracks doesn’t email a copy of any message because outbound email isn’t covered by a BAA. Don’t paste a message into Help Scout or any other tool that isn’t covered by a BAA.