Ocean’s Patient Messages and Reminders are a great way for clinics to streamline patient communication. However, writing messages that are clear, concise, and engaging is just as important as sending them in the first place! Poorly written messages can lead to confusion, missed appointments, and more time handling patient inquiries.

In this guide, we’ll cover some more advanced tips & tricks for writing effective Patient Messages and Reminders that look good and work well. Read on to learn more!

If you’re new to patient messaging, check out Best Practices for Effective Patient Messages and Reminders for a rundown of the basics.

📚 Consider Reading Comprehension

Many patients struggle to understand overly complex or technical medical messages. In fact, the Canadian Public Health Association shows that nearly 60% of adults have low health literacy, making it crucial to keep patient communication simple and accessible.

We generally recommend clinics avoid using abbreviations (e.g., instead of “NPO,” write “Do not eat or drink”) unless it’s explicitly written out for the patient to understand. In some cases, we’ve seen patients confused about which clinic sent them a message because the clinic referred to themselves using an unfamiliar abbreviation, like OMDFHT instead of OceanMD Family Health Team for example.

Given Canada’s diverse patient population, it’s also important to be mindful of language barriers and provide translations when possible. Ocean currently supports French translations, but using simple words and keeping sentences short can also go a long way to help patients who are english-as-a-second-language or rely on a family member or caregiver to help.

✉️ Personalize Where Possible

Personalization makes messages feel more relevant and less like spam. With our keyword functionality, you can automatically pull in information from the EMR like patient’s preferred name, appointment date & time, and even their provider’s name.

Hi @ptPreferredOrFirstName, this is a reminder for your upcoming appointment with @providerName on @apptDate at @apptTime. Please check in using the kiosk when you arrive!

Personalization isn’t just important for your patient’s information – consider adding clinic information like full name, address, and phone number as well. Since Ocean Messages typically come from a no-reply email address, including clinic contact information gives patients a way to reach out if they have any questions. This also makes messages feel more personal and increases the likelihood that patients will read them.

🌐 Link Directly to Patient Support Resources

If your patients need help, make sure they know where to find it. OceanMD offers a Patient’s Guide to Ocean, a patient-facing resource complete with instructions, how-to videos, and FAQs. If a patient ever reaches out with an issue, there’s a good chance this guide has a solution! Providing a direct link to this guide in messages can reduce confusion and support inquiries.

Example:
If you need help with online booking, visit the Patient’s Guide to Ocean for a how-to video.

By proactively linking to support resources, clinics can minimize unnecessary patient calls and emails.

As always, we recommend sending some test messages & reminders before going live with your patient population. If you need help with a message, reach out to our client success team, and check out this article for more messaging best practices.

✏️ Take Advantage of Advanced Formatting

A well-structured message makes it easier for patients to find key details. Since Ocean supports basic HTML formatting, consider adding some to enhance readability and draw attention to important information.

Even if you’re unfamiliar with HTML, you can copy and paste the examples from our Formatting Templates support article into your message templates—no coding required! We’ve also included a Template Library at the end of the article for more examples.

Some useful HTML tags include:

• Emphasize what’s important with bold  and italic tags
  Wrap important text in open and closing bold or italics tags—for example: <b>Don’t Forget Your Health Card!</b> or <i>See You Soon!</i>
• Use colour to draw attention
  By using colour sparingly, you can draw attention to important information like warnings or urgent instructions. For example, <font color=”red”> will turn your text red.
• Give reminders room to breathe with line breaks
  Add <hr> tags wherever you want to space out your content.
• Organize information with bullets and lists
  Use either <ol> for numbered lists or <ul> for bullet points. Place the tag at the start of the list and mark each point with an <li> tag
• Link out to learn more
  Patients are more likely to understand your message if it’s concise so include only the necessary details upfront. If you want to include additional information, consider using hyperlinks to other documents or to your clinic website, rather than overloading the message itself. The format to add links is: <a href=”www.yourlink.ca”>Your Link Copy</a>

Using these elements helps structure messages in a way that makes them easier for patients to skim and understand quickly.

Need a head start?

To make things even easier, we’ve put together a library of messaging templates that clinics can copy and customize. Check out the image gallery below for some examples. If there’s anything you want to use, copy the template from the tabs and create a new template in Ocean to start streamlining your patient communications!

Note: After adding to Ocean and replacing certain fields with your clinic info, send a test message to make sure to check all the formatting was transferred properly!