In an increasingly hybrid healthcare system, the demand for simple, seamless patient-to-provider communication tools has never been greater. That’s why this year, our team will be introducing several exciting changes to improve the secure messaging experience for patients, providers and their staff.

Keep reading to see the changes we’ve recently rolled out and get a glimpse of the next-generation Ocean Health Messenger!

All Clinic Support Staff are now covered under Provider Licences

We are pleased to announce that as of February 9, all clinic support staff on Ocean can send secure messages on behalf of a licensed provider at no additional charge. With this enhancement, clinics will benefit from the following improvements:

• Licensed providers no longer need to manually configure a Primary Delegate in Ocean
• Healthcare providers with a Patient Messages and Reminders (PMR) licences are not limited to a single delegate/administrative user acting on their behalf
• Any MOA/Secretary, Administrator, Nurse, Resident, Medical Student, or Physician Assistant user in Ocean can directly send messages on behalf of a licensed provider without any changes to their Ocean settings

With this change, we hope more users can take advantage of Ocean features without worrying about user management. If you need help configuring user roles or have questions about this change, please contact our support team at ocean.tips/support.

Please Note:  Clinic Providers still require a Patient Messaging and Reminders licence to send messages, enable reminders, or have Clinic Support Staff send messages on their behalf. Support staff may need to update their User Role setting in Ocean to have this permission reflected.

Coming in 2024: Improved patient experience with attachments and more!

Introducing the Ocean Health Messenger: Mobile-first, patient-friendly, and ready to simplify workflows with two-way attachments, enhanced UX and more! This year, we are excited to be releasing a new and improved patient-facing interface for our Patient Messaging product.

As a sneak peak, here are a selection of features and improvements you can expect when Health Messenger is released:

• Senders will have the option to allow patients to reply to a message with an attachment
• New features will allow patients to easily save and send copies of messages before they expire
• Mobile-first responsive design will provide enhanced accessibility

The Ocean product team is currently preparing to test the new experience with a select group of clinics. Interested in helping us refine the future of Patient Messages? You can express your interest and request more information by completing the form linked below.

BONUS: New secure messaging funding opportunity for Ontario providers

Last but not least in our Patient Messaging roundup we’d like to share that Ontario Health has recently announced a new pilot project to pay for patient engagements conducted via secure messaging services such as Ocean.

Curious if this program would be worthwhile for your clinic? Read our summary to learn more.