Content Review for appointment reminder email from MHV on va.gov team

[bevnobev]

What does your team need support for? Check all that apply.

• [ ] Launching one or more unauthenticated pages, online forms, apps, or tools on VA.gov
• [ ] Making revisions to one or more existing VA.gov pages

• [x] Something else

  Give a brief description of what your team needs support with. We would like a content review of the current appointment reminder email that MHV sends

Will this new product be released incrementally (for instance 25% of users initially)?

• [ ] Yes
• [x] No

Note: If you checked yes, we'll reach out to discuss details about the content in the react widget.

When do you expect to launch your product to 100% of users?

August 2023

Please provide an estimated date so our team can create other relevant tickets.

Supporting artifacts

Please provide supporting artifacts as available.

• Link to product outline:
• Link to or attach user flows:
• Link to prototype or mockups:
• Link to any epics/issues that may be helpful:

Will this work be going through the Collaboration Cycle?

• [ ] Yes
• [x] No

When does this work need to be done?

• Estimated launch date: August 2023
• Estimated staging review date:
• Content, Accessibility, and IA work needed by:

Do you plan to bring this to an upcoming content office hours session?

• [ ] Yes, benefit content office hours (Thursdays, 3:00 p.m. to 3:45 p.m. ET)
• [x] Yes, health content office hours (Thursdays, 11:00 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. ET)
• [ ] Yes, unauth office hours (Mondays, 11:00 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. ET)
• [ ] No, but I'd like to schedule time to talk about this request
• [ ] No, let's work asynchronously and meet if needed

Note: If we think this work would benefit from a collaborative session with you, we may ask you to bring it to office hours or set up a separate time to meet.

About your team

• Team name:
• OCTO-DE product owner: Beverly Nelson & Kay Lawyer
• Product manager: Melanie Jones, Jeff Roof
• Designer:
• FE engineer:
• Product/team Slack channel: #appointments-team

Next steps

Once you’ve submitted this ticket, please post a link to this issue in the #sitewide-content-ia Slack channel and tag Randi Hecht.

If you also need engineering support from the Public Websites team, fill out their intake request form.

If you need a page/URL redirected, a URL changed or a vanity URL set up, please submit a Redirect, URL change, or vanity URL request

### Content
- [ ] https://github.com/department-of-veterans-affairs/va.gov-team/issues/58475
- [ ] https://github.com/department-of-veterans-affairs/va.gov-team/issues/87286

### Accessibility
- [ ] https://github.com/department-of-veterans-affairs/va.gov-team/issues/85074

[bevnobev]

MHV Appointment Reminder Email.docx

cc: @klawyer

[bevnobev]

Including VEText SMS Reminder for references

[bevnobev]

We need content for two emails. One with PHI and one without PHI

[aliyahblackmore]

Hi @bevnobev - I'm a writer on the sitewide content team and I'll be reviewing this content.

Thanks so much for sharing more details with us about this request.

We have a few questions so far:

1. Is this email for the new appointments tool on VA.gov or is this email reminder coming from the My HealtheVet view only appointments list?
2. Can you confirm that the word document that you added to the ticket on May 12 is the content that we should review?
3. We noticed the recent reference image from VEText for PHI and non PHI content. Should the PHI content be formatted like the content in the word document or similar to the VEText reference image? This is a screen capture of how the content is formatted in the word document:

4. For the email without PHI - is there a link that someone can select to review the full appointment information or details?

Let me know if a meeting would be helpful to review these questions and I'm happy to set one up.

We look forward to collaborating on this!

[bevnobev]

Looping in @klawyer to answer some of the questions.

1. Not sure which system will trigger the email. Deferring to @klawyer
2. The document added on 5/12 is what should be reviewed.
3. I added the SMS content from VEText because it contains the department (Cardiology in the example), and the floor/room ( 1st floor room 1A in the example). The example from MHV (word doc) does not have this information. I think the email and SMS messages should contain the same information, regardless of format
4. We can send a link to the page on VA.gov where appointment details are available. Deferring to @klawyer

cc: @mjones-oddball @JRRoof

[aliyahblackmore]

Hi @klawyer - I'm following up on this ticket for answers to the above questions that @bevnobev tagged you on:

1. Is this email for the new appointments tool on VA.gov or is this email reminder coming from the My HealtheVet view only appointments list?
2. For the email without PHI - is there a link that someone can select to review the full appointment information or details?

And there's one additional question that we have:

3. Which pieces of information are considered PHI in the context of this email?

@laurwill FYSA while I'm OOO

[bevnobev]

@aliyahblackmore Hoping to answer some questions to get this moving along.

1. This email is will be triggered by VEText, and it's directly related to new appointments tool on VA.gov or the MHV appointment list.
2. @klawyer @kristenmcconnell I think linking to an appointment list/page will be great for those that choose no PHI
3. I believe the following is considered ePHI:

• VA Medical Center
• VA Clinic Name, Floor/Room
• Clinic contact information
• Additional contact (extension)

Hi @klawyer - I'm following up on this ticket for answers to the above questions that @bevnobev tagged you on:

1. Is this email for the new appointments tool on VA.gov or is this email reminder coming from the My HealtheVet view only appointments list?
2. For the email without PHI - is there a link that someone can select to review the full appointment information or details?

And there's one additional question that we have:

3. Which pieces of information are considered PHI in the context of this email?

@laurwill FYSA while I'm OOO

[klawyer]

@aliyahblackmore @bevnobev Apologies for the delay. Are those really considered ePHI? @kristenmcconnell I think this would be a good use case to link to a low-risk auth (LOROTA) appointment list for details. There will likely be barriers and annoyance to having to fully auth to get this basic information when they haven't had to do this in the past.

Also- should consider if they click the link and have the VAHB mobile application- then it can direct them to that app on their phone and not a web experience.

[bevnobev]

@klawyer @kristenmcconnell We will have the ePHI permission in the notification preference within VA.gov, so a Veteran can check that box to get the info that's considered ePHI. Not sure if we can opt those that receive the email currently, automatically

[aliyahblackmore]

Hi @bevnobev and @klawyer - thanks so much for these answers and additional context about how appointments will be connected to this reminder email.

I have a few follow up questions as I'm moving back to reviewing this content:

1. @bevnobev you mentioned that the appointment reminder email will be triggered by VEText. Will appointment reminder emails be sent once someone receives a separate appointment reminder text message from VEText?
2. Can you all confirm the pieces of information that are ePHI? @klawyer I see in your comment from above that you asked if the VA Medical Center, Clinic Name, Clinic contact information, and additional contact are actually considered ePHI.
3. @bevnobev in your word document you include this instruction "Call your VA facility to validate the date, time and type of appointment (telephone, video, in-person)." When you say "validate" does this mean someone is confirming their appointment by calling their VA health facility?
4. @klawyer If someone is using their mobile phone and has the VAHB mobile application on that phone and they select a link to review more details about their appointment from this email, will the mobile application automatically open on their phone from that link? Or would there need to be a separate link for reviewing appointments in the mobile application?
5. And based on the above answers I want to confirm that there should be two emails with the following information: one email will have ePHI information (sent to those who have the ePHI permission checked in their notification preferences) and the second email won't have ePHI information. And based on your above comment @klawyer both emails should include a link to the low-risk auth (LOROTA)appointment details?

And as mentioned to Beverly on Monday (via Slack), after I've reviewed and provided feedback on the email content our managing editor, Laura, will review the changes before we pass it to you all in this ticket.

Thanks so much for your continued collaboration in this work!

[kristenmcconnell]

@klawyer I would agree with your linking to the LOROTA appointment list suggestion if it included all the appointments that VAOS does. LOROTA appointments only has in-person and telephone. Are we worried about not having Video appointments in the list? Though is VCC still sending email reminders? If so, then it might be ok to link to the LOROTA experience.

@bevnobev Are we going to have the notification preference set up too, so they can select if they want a text or email? This might answer @aliyahblackmore's first question.

in your word document you include this instruction "Call your VA facility to validate the date, time and type of appointment (telephone, video, in-person)." When you say "validate" does this mean someone is confirming their appointment by calling their VA health facility?

I wondered about this. Do we really want to suggest that they call to confirm? Should we say something more along the lines of...call if you have questions? @klawyer Do we know why they originally had this content in the email? Should we check with IVC?

If someone is using their mobile phone and has the VAHB mobile application on that phone and they select a link to review more details about their appointment from this email, will the mobile application automatically open on their phone from that link? Or would there need to be a separate link for reviewing appointments in the mobile application?

We would need to complete some engineering work to add this capability. @klawyer We should talk to the teams.

[bevnobev]

@aliyahblackmore w/r/t

@bevnobev youhttps://github.com/department-of-veterans-affairs/va.gov-team/issues/58378#issuecomment-1699624748that the appointment reminder email will be triggered by VEText. Will appointment reminder emails be sent once someone receives a separate appointment reminder text message from VEText?

The Veteran will have a notification preference in VA.gov to chose email or SMS. Currently SMS is sends to all, except those who have opted out. Email currently send to only those who have opted in. @klawyer we should meet with Shane to discuss this logic to avoid overlap.

[bevnobev]

@aliyahblackmore

@bevnobev in your word document you include this instruction "Call your VA facility to validate the date, time and type of appointment (telephone, video, in-person)." When you say "validate" does this mean someone is confirming their appointment by calling their VA health facility?

The text above is from the current MHV email, so I'm not sure of what the call to action is intended to be.

[kristenmcconnell]

@bevnobev Can you add me to the notification preference logic discussion?

[aliyahblackmore]

Thanks for these replies @bevnobev @klawyer @kristenmcconnell

Based on the above comments, it sounds like you will discuss some of the technical components of the reminder email.

When you all have updates from that discussion let us know and I'll move back to adjusting the email reminder content based on those answers!

Thanks so much for your continued collaboration on this.

[bevnobev]

Hi @aliyahblackmore Can we circle back to this? MHV will start work on the preference in April and the content should be ready when they are ready cc: @klawyer @kristenmcconnell

[aliyahblackmore]

Hi @bevnobev thanks for circling back on this work.

I sent a message to our PM @strelichl just to confirm when we can pull this work into an upcoming sprint.

In the meantime, can you confirm the notification preference decision?

[bevnobev]

For notification preferences, the existing preference stored in MHV will live in VA Profile, and VA Notify or VEText will read from that preference and send appropriately.

[aliyahblackmore]

Hi @bevnobev thanks so much for following up.

@laurwill will support you all with this email content as this is related to work on health tools.

[bevnobev]

Hi @laurwill checking to get a status on this. Happy to help

[mjones-oddball]

Hi @laurwill Just checking if there's any updates on content recommendations?

[laurwill]

Hi @mjones-oddball , sorry for the delay — I connected with the appointments team to figure out the most important details to include for each appointment type.

@Cieramaddox , could you review the updated draft of this email and confirm that I included the right fields for each type? (I also left questions in the doc that you may be able to answer, but some may be for VA Notify team.)

MHV.Appointment.Reminder.Email (2).docx

I think the next steps are:

• Laura updates PHI email draft version as needed after Cierra reviews
• VA Notify team confirms with engineers that we can display these data fields in the email
• VA Notify team confirms if email aligns with their template
• Laura makes final updates as needed
• Laura & VA Notify team align on what we need to remove for non-PHI version of the email

@mjones-oddball I'd also love to connect with your team about some expanded email guidance we're drafting for the VA content style guide. Could I find a time in the next week or two to sync about that?

[mjones-oddball]

@ElissaFolk @hubgitian Can you please provide a couple days and times to @laurwill for the next week or two to have a 30 minute sync RE expanded email guidance for the content style guide.

[ElissaFolk]

@laurwill Hi! Any chance you are free next week (May 20-23) at 11, 11:30, 2:30, or 3 ET for us to set up a time to discuss the email guidance?

[laurwill]

Hi @ElissaFolk , I'm free Tuesday 5/21 at 11 or 11:30 and Thursday 5/23 at 11 or 2:30. Thanks so much for following up, and looking forward to discussing this guidance!

[laurwill]

Also @Cieramaddox I realized I uploaded a doc instead of linking to the Sharepoint version — here's the Sharepoint doc: MHV.Appointment.Reminder.Email.2

I added the medication review language from the recent work on that shared content. Do you think you'll have time to review the data fields for each appointment type this week? Happy to sync with you if that's easier!

[kristenmcconnell]

@ElissaFolk @mjones-oddball @hubgitian I have a few questions about VA Notify's email guidance.

• How many PII/PHI data elements are allowed for users that have opted in for the PII/PHI version? I vaguely reminder hearing a limit of 2, but I wanted to confirm.
• If someone receives other VA Notify emails in error, what is the support process that you direct users to in other instances? I'm thinking about our need help section.
• In your templates, do you recommend stating something similar to "Do not reply directly to this email, since it is an automated message?"

cc @laurwill

[mjones-oddball]

Hi @kristenmcconnell

1. This is the only PII/PHI email that has been approved by the VA to be sent thru unencrypted channels, so there's no rule that I'm aware on how much is ok. It's up to the privacy officer who reviewed it with MHV. If there's any PII/PHI it would have to be approved by privacy to follow this new consent model before VA Notify would be able to send it. 2 and 3: See the information change notice sample template: CC @ElissaFolk @hubgitian @laurwill

[laurwill]

Hi @mjones-oddball and @kristenmcconnell ,

For the PII/PHI version

When I first met with Beverly about this work, the plan was to draft a PII/PHI version of the email that would include all the pieces of information we think will be most helpful in an appointment reminder. From this thread, it sounds like:

• The pieces of PII/PHI in the VEText reminder are approved for use in the VEText reminder only, and this email will need separate privacy approval no matter how many pieces of PHI/PII it includes.
• We're not aware of a specific rule about a maximum number of pieces of PHI/PII Is that correct?

The PHI version of the VEText reminder seems to include:

• Time of appointment
• Facility name
• Clinic location
• Clinic name (I think this is likely the "Patient-friendly clinic name" field?)
• Phone number (I think this is likely the "Clinic phone" field?)

The current draft of the email includes these additional fields for certain appointment types:

• Address of facility (for in-person, video at facility, and claim exam)
• Provider name (for community care)
• Code to enter at ATLAS facility to join that video appt type

Do you have any concerns with including those additional fields in the version we submit for privacy review?

For the non-PII/PHI version

The only data in the VEText is appointment time and a phone number.

• Does this mean that we can only include these 2 pieces of information in the non-PII/PHI email?
• I think it would be very helpful to at least add appointment type (in-person, phone, etc), if that's possible.

[laurwill]

I created VA Notify templates for both versions (PII and non-PII) to try out the styling. Here's a couple notes:

• These are much longer than a real email would likely be, because I included an example of each appointment type.
• Ian confirmed that best practice for links in the email is now to include the full URL in running text like "Go to https://va.gov/profile" so I changed links to this style.
• I added a link to appointments on VA.gov to the intro of the non-PII version, since that one doesn't have enough info to function as a full reminder on its own.

Non-PII

PII

[mjones-oddball]

@klawyer @shanemelliott See content suggestions above for both PII/PHI and non PII/PHI versions of the appt reminder email. We will need to validate that the dynamic content data formatting suggestions can be accomplished. I'm not sure if we can validate that now, or if we can just take the suggestions and see what happens when we move the email to VA Notify and update that notification code (either via VEText or MHV).

[laurwill]

Hi @mjones-oddball just noting that I'm making some updates to both emails now, and will post the new versions shortly!

[laurwill]

Here's a Mural with updated versions of both emails: https://app.mural.co/t/departmentofveteransaffairs9999/m/departmentofveteransaffairs9999/1717604095056/bd084ed3c2489d65a706390af98124b7057be182?wid=0-1717605785570

[laurwill]

Hi again! Just documenting that I sent the email content to Stephania Griffin for privacy review. She's out of office this week, so Kamilah Jackson may be reviewing in her place.

Here's a link to the updated content in Sharepoint: MHV.Appointment.Reminder.Emails.6.28

[coforma-jamie]

This is blocked - in Privacy Review