Signposting in the Smart Inbox

Assigning teams, urgency and mode when triaging

Faye avatar
Written by Faye
Updated over a week ago

This article covers:


The signposting panel

The signposting panel is the right-hand panel that appears when you click on an eConsult summary card. It will always appear alongside the consultation so that you can make and log decisions whilst reviewing the patient’s eConsult.

By default, all the triaging fields are marked as 'Unassigned' until the person making triage decisions completes these fields from the available options. Note that the 'Type' (clinical or administrative) is defaulted based on the type of submission but can be overwritten.

The signposting panel will be there for both administrative and clinical eConsults and has two sections:

  1. Signpost: where you make and save triage decisions or comments.

  2. Comments & Activity Log: where you can see all the decisions or comments that have been made or added.


The signposting section

The signposting section allows you to document your triage decisions relating to managing the patient in the most appropriate way, for example:

  • Team - which role is best suited to help this patient (for example pharmacist, practice nurse, etc).

  • Urgency - which priority bracket does this patient sit within in terms of how quickly the eConsult needs to be handled, e.g. 24 hours, 28 hours, 3 days, 5 days etc.

  • Mode - what is the next step for the patient care e.g. email, face to face, home visit, etc.

  • Type - Admin or Clinical (pre-populated depending on the template submitted but this can be overwritten).

  • Status - this describes where the eConsult is in terms of its journey. Find out more about status options here.

  • Comment box - comments can be left to add additional information for other colleagues or to note the rationale for decisions.

As soon as you change the Status of an eConsult and save this, your eConsult will move to the relevant subfolder.

Anytime you have chosen Other or should you need to include additional information, it is recommended that you input this into the ‘Comments’ section within the signpost panel. This is also helpful should you wish to indicate who has dealt with the eConsult, or if you require a particular person to look at the eConsult.

Staff should be encouraged to review the Comments section within the signposting panel to ensure nothing is missed and all comments are reviewed.


Comments & Activity Log

Here, you will be able to see all activities and any added comments to the eConsult, if you download or export the eConsult from the Smart Inbox all the activity log will be included.

Under Activity we show you any changes that have been made, for example, which team member updated any of the signposting options or whether the eConsult has been exported as a PDF or saved to the clinical system.

The Comments view will only show you comments that have been added to the eConsult, by whom and when they were added.

Selecting the All view will show you all activities and comments in the order in which they were made, with the newest changes at the top and the oldest changes at the bottom.

Any activity in the signposting panel (changes, comments) is included in the PDF export that is generated.


If you have any questions or you feel that this article could be improved, please feel free to give us some feedback by emailing us, pressing the emojis below or using the chat button on the bottom right-hand side of this page to speak to one of the eConsult team.

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