Pathways and Automation

Pathways and Automation

Pathways define how clinical events are automatically routed into the Inbox. When something happens - a patient submits a questionnaire, a lab result arrives, or a message is received - the system creates or updates an episode based on your pathway configuration.

How It Works

When a clinical event occurs, the system:

1. Matches the event to a pathway configuration
2. Creates a new episode or attaches the event to an existing one
3. Sets the initial responsibility, priority, and assignment based on the pathway rules

Supported Event Types

Pathways can be triggered by the following events:

• Appointment - booked, rescheduled, cancelled, or completed
• Questionnaire - submitted by the patient
• Lab Result - received from the laboratory
• Invoice - created, paid, or voided
• Prescription - signed by the clinician
• Message - received from the patient
• Identity Verification - completed by the patient

Configuration Layers

Pathway behaviour is determined by three layers, applied in order:

1. System Defaults - built-in defaults that apply to all organisations
2. Base Configuration - your organisation's overrides for each event type (configured in Settings)
3. Rule Overrides - condition-based rules that apply when specific criteria are met, such as a particular appointment type or questionnaire template

Higher layers take priority. For example, a rule override for a specific appointment type will override both the base configuration and system defaults.

Assignment Hierarchy

When an episode is created, the system determines the initial assignment using this priority order:

1. Human override - if a staff member manually assigns the episode
2. Existing episode owner - if the event is attached to an existing episode
3. Template default - the default assignee configured on the appointment type or questionnaire template
4. Trigger configuration - the default assignee from the pathway configuration

Tip: You can review and customise pathway settings in the Inbox section of your organisation's Settings page.

Sending messages: log to Closed instead of Waiting

When a clinician sends a message that contains a link (a document share, a booking link, a questionnaire), the system creates an inbox episode that lands on Waiting by default — so you can track whether the patient acts on it.

If your practice prefers to log those sends but not see them on Waiting, set the send a message trigger to Create and close mode:

1. Settings → Inbox → Pathways → Communication pathway.
2. Open the send a message trigger.
3. Change Mode to Create and close.

With this set, link-bearing outbound messages still create an episode (so you keep a full audit trail with timestamps and a status_history entry), but the episode lands on the Closed tab immediately. It never sits on Waiting.

This option is only available on the messaging trigger. Clinical triggers (lab results, appointment bookings, questionnaire submissions) require an open episode and reject this mode by safety floor.

Note: Plain text messages with no link have never created inbox episodes — they appear on the patient timeline only. This setting only affects the link-bearing case.