Pre-Consult — Front-Desk & Assistant Operations Manual
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Pre-Consult — Front-Desk & Assistant Operations Manual

Daily operations manual for front-desk and clinic assistant staff: pre-clinic checks, helping elderly patients and foreign caregivers, rescuing stuck forms, four doctor-collaboration scenarios, and six common questions.

Why this manual is for you

iRehab's Pre-Consult feature looks like "the patient scans a QR and fills a form" — but front-desk and clinic assistants are what actually makes it work. Patients who can't scan, foreign caregivers who don't read the local language, forgotten codes, dropped Wi-Fi — these all land on your counter. This manual turns the everyday situations into a checklist you can use. The full design rationale lives in Pre-Visit Brief: When the Patient Can't Tell You Whether It's Tendon or Nerve.

Print and post at your counter or nursing station.


1. Daily opening-checklist

  1. Walk to the waiting area / reception — confirm the QR Code poster is still up and not blocked
  2. Check that today's consulting doctor name matches the doctor actually on
  3. If the doctor changes last minute (extra session, cover, cancellation), ask the doctor on duty to reprint from their Doctor PWA and put away the old one
  4. Replace the poster if corners are bent or damaged
  5. Confirm the waiting area has working Wi-Fi / usable 4G (patients' phones need it)

2. Helping patients scan and fill

Scenario 1: An older patient who can't scan QR

  1. Demonstrate once: open camera → point at QR → tap the address
  2. Hand the phone back and guide them through the first two fields (name, birth year)
  3. The rest are tap-options; they'll usually manage from there
  4. Before they walk away, remind them: "Take a photo of your code."

Scenario 2: Foreign caregiver / patient who doesn't read the local language

  1. Scan the QR for them
  2. Top right of the screen is a globe icon — tap to switch language
  3. Choose: English / Tiếng Việt / Bahasa Indonesia / 日本語 / 한국어 / Español
  4. The globe icon is always visible in the top right. If the patient's phone system language is non-Chinese (vi, id, ja, ko, en, es), scanning the QR auto-loads the matching locale; Chinese phones default to zh-TW and can be switched manually anytime
  5. The code format stays PC-XXXXXX regardless of language

Scenario 3: Stuck mid-form

  • No internet → check Wi-Fi or switch to 4G
  • Opened from LINE → tap "···" top-right → "Open in Safari / Chrome"
  • Low battery → borrow the clinic's public phone; submission takes only 2 minutes
  • Truly can't fill → read the questions to them, point-and-tap on their behalf, then write the code on a note

Scenario 4: Finished but doesn't know where the code is

  1. Ask them to return to the submission screen — the code is at the top
  2. Already closed? Rescan the QR from the same phone — it'll show "Your code is PC-XXXXXX"
  3. Still missing? Get their phone or email — the doctor can look it up from the Doctor PWA

3. Doctor collaboration

Situation 1: Doctor says queue is empty, patient says they filled it

  1. Ask the patient for their code PC-XXXXXX
  2. If you have Doctor PWA co-operator permission → use the "⊕ Manual Lookup" on their behalf
  3. If not → hand the code slip to the doctor so they can enter it

Situation 2: Red-bar patient

  • The card shows a red advisory bar
  • Ask the doctor to see them ahead of the call order
  • This doesn't mean the patient is critical — the system is only flagging an answer combination that deserves extra follow-up questions

Situation 3: Patient scanned the wrong doctor's QR

  • Ask where they scanned (maybe they walked past the next clinic)
  • The duty doctor enters the code via "⊕ Manual Lookup" — it still pulls the record
  • The card shows "Original doctor: XXX" so the doctor knows

Situation 4: Patient submitted but left before being called

  • Their record stays in the pre-consult queue for 48 hours
  • If they come back later that day, the doctor can find them in the queue
  • After 48 hours, the record is archived but can still be pulled via code

4. Common questions

Q: Patient forgot their code. Now what? A: First check whether they entered a phone or email — the doctor can look it up. If not, they'll need to rescan and fill again (the old record stays in the system but can't be retrieved). Consider adding "photograph your code" to the poster.

Q: Patient scanned the QR on my phone by accident. A: No problem. Hand them the phone and let them continue. The code is produced at submit; it isn't tied to whose phone was used.

Q: Wi-Fi went down while they were filling. A: Every step is saved. Once internet comes back, rescan the QR on the same phone and it resumes. Worst case: refill, which takes 2 minutes.

Q: I don't speak the patient's language. How do I communicate? A: Switch to their language via the globe icon. The system translates the questions. You only need to confirm they tapped Submit — no translation work on you.

Q: Patient left and only remembered at home that they forgot to screenshot the code. A: Ask them to mention it at their next visit. If they left a phone or email, the doctor can retrieve. Otherwise, they refill.

Q: Why do some patients fill in so fast? A: Because they're already an iRehab patient (the system has their account). It recognizes them and auto-fills name, phone, and birth year. They only need today's complaint — about 30 seconds. The patient sees "We've filled in your info for you." You don't need to do anything special — the same QR works.