OD calendar sync with Google

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jmod427
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Joined: Tue Mar 15, 2016 8:26 am

OD calendar sync with Google

Post by jmod427 » Tue Mar 15, 2016 8:32 am

Hey everybody - I'm new to these forums, however will be a OpenDental user this summer when my office opens. I'm in the middle of planning my website and I expressed to the designer having the ability to schedule a new patient visit, emergency or recall cleaning from the website would be a cool idea. He found a plugin called Bookly: http://booking-wp-plugin.com/ that could do this. It puts the appointments scheduled through that plugin into a Google calendar. Is there a way to sync this Google calendar with the OD calendar? Has anybody ever used Bookly before? Thanks!

bpcomp
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Re: OD calendar sync with Google

Post by bpcomp » Tue Mar 15, 2016 8:45 am

My first biggest concern is this sounds like a huge HIPAA violation. What is to prevent patient A from seeing the personal details of patient B's appointment?

Open Dental offers this functionality with security for an additional fee. http://www.opendental.com/manual/fees.html It's called WebSched. We don't use it on our office so I can't speak to how well it works but I do know that Open Dental has it all worked out with encryption and security to make sure you are not exposed for a HIPAA violoation.

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Arna
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Re: OD calendar sync with Google

Post by Arna » Tue Mar 15, 2016 9:40 am

I agree with bpcomp- you'll need to do a thorough security risk analysis and get BAAs in place if you want to go the Google Calendar route. This is exactly why we built the web scheduler: http://opendental.com/manual/websched.html
Entropy isn't what it used to be...

Arna Meyer

jmod427
Posts: 4
Joined: Tue Mar 15, 2016 8:26 am

Re: OD calendar sync with Google

Post by jmod427 » Tue Mar 15, 2016 11:00 am

I've forwarded the question of HIPAA compliance to the developer to find out and get a clearer answer. As far as I could tell based on the demo, the patients never see the schedule. They just select the type of appointment needed (New Pt or Emergency), select the available times, then it'll give you the available times based on the calendar and you get to select which appointment time you'd like...it then goes into the Calendar which I believe only the office sees, but I'll verify that.

WebSched seems like a good idea for recall appointments, however I'm looking for something that New Pts can access directly from our website on computers or smart devices. We're increasingly becoming a more digital world...

jmod427
Posts: 4
Joined: Tue Mar 15, 2016 8:26 am

Re: OD calendar sync with Google

Post by jmod427 » Tue Mar 15, 2016 12:26 pm

As far as the HIPAA and BAA concern - here's an answer regarding Google in those matters: https://support.google.com/a/answer/3407054

Still waiting on answer from the developer of Bookly.

Assuming all is good and PHI is protected. Is there a way to sync the Google Calendar that the plugin uses with the OD calendar?

bpcomp
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Joined: Mon Feb 27, 2012 7:30 am
Location: Tucson, AZ
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Re: OD calendar sync with Google

Post by bpcomp » Tue Mar 15, 2016 1:28 pm

Well from a technical aspect of possibility, OpenDental doesn't have a standard calendar import export function. My best guess is that you'd have to write a custom plugin but it would be possible. I'm trying to think of a work around way that doesn't involve writing a plugin from scratch. In all my scenarios, you still have to translate a google calendar ICS into OpenDental's format and vice versa and that is going to take programming.

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