To add an action

1. Right click on either Frequent Actions heading or Additional Actions heading and select Add action. This displays theAction - Add screen.
2. Action Text: type the text of the message. Some suggestions for Frequent Actions are:
   • No Action Required
   • Pt to make appointment
   • Dr to contact patient
   • Patient to collect script
   • Examples for Additional Actions:
   • Repeat Test
   • Continue treatment
   • Notes to GP
   • Set up a recall
   • Review Medication
   • Telephone patient - no further action
   • Schedule a home visit
3. Default Staff/Group: This lists all the staff and staff groups. This is optional, but you can assign this particular action always to be dealt with by a particular group (eg receptionists) or member of staff (eg, phlebotomist).
4. Default Action Status You can choose a default action status (see "Action Status") which is applied to the message when this action is selected. This allows for a default action status to be applied to individual actions rather than a default for all messages (although this is still possible) whilst still allowing for the message to be marked as complete on selecting the action.

   Note - With the combined Mark Original as Read option, see below, you can simultaneously action, mark a Message as Read and complete.

5. Mark Original As Read This marks the original message as read when this action is selected in Mail Manager. When adding multiple actions to a message, as long as one of the actions has Mark Original as Read selected, the message is marked as read.
6. Patient specific: By default the patient-specific flag is ticked. This indicates that the result of the action is likely to be an update to the patient record or an encounter with the patient. This is used to assess the seriousness of reassigning a patient assigned in error. By default, all new actions should have the patient-specific flag set. Examples of non patient-specific actions would be "Not sure which Jones this is, please check" or "Please check with lab that we’ve received all the results for today".
7. Place in: select either Frequent Actions or Additional Actions, depending on the context from which it was selected.
   • If selected from Discontinued Actions in either tree view or list view, then Additional Actions should be checked.
   • When added to the Frequent Actions group, the item is added at the top of the display order.
8. Display Add Action Screen: This is ticked by default, but you can remove the tick so that the Add Action form does not display when adding an action in Mail Manager.