Building a Protocol-Driven Clinical Inbox from Scratch
A clinical inbox is not email. It is a task engine with safety requirements. Here is how to design one that routes, owns, and resolves work deterministically.
The inbox is the operating system of the clinic
Every clinical day runs through the inbox. Lab results, refill requests, patient messages, prior authorizations, referral responses. The inbox is where work arrives, gets classified, and either gets done or gets lost.
Messages versus work units
A message is unstructured. A work unit has a type, an owner, a protocol, a resolution, and an audit trail.