Waiting areas and meeting rooms: what's the difference?
How to use a waiting area or a meeting room
The waiting area is where a patient or client waits for their health professional to join them for a video consultation. Each patient or client has their own private space – they can't see who else is in the waiting area.
A meeting room is a virtual room where health professionals and/or administrators can meet and interact.
Please note: A user room is a private permanent video room that can be used by a single health professional. User rooms are created by the clinic administrator for the required users and their use is restricted to the team member who the user room belongs to. User rooms will have the name of the User and will show in the LHS grey menu column in the clinic. We do not recommend user rooms for consultations with patients as these rooms do not have the additional features available in the waiting area. For this reason User Rooms are not included in the diagram and information below.
|
Entity |
Waiting area |
Meeting room |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | The private virtual space where a patient waits for a consultation to begin with their health professional. |
A virtual video room that health professionals use to meet with or interact with one another. |
| Structure | Each clinic has a single waiting area. | Each clinic can have multiple meeting rooms. |
| How it works | When a patient enters a waiting area, a virtual space is automatically created for that patient and then it disappears when the consultation is complete. Several patients can enter the same waiting area at the same time but will be unable to see each other as a secure and private space is created for each patient. |
A meeting room is static (always there for use) and needs to be created before it can be used. Be aware that a person who has been provided with the meeting room link can enter the meeting room while another meeting is in progress. |
| Who uses it | Patients are joined by their service provider via the waiting area dashboard. | Health service staff Patients must not be given access to meeting rooms |
| Permissions | Patients do not need an account or login details to access the waiting area. |
Health staff need to be a team member of the clinic (and have their own sign in for Video Call) to use a meeting room or other people can be sent a guest link to the room |
| Access | Patients enter via a button on the health service website or a weblink (URL) to the waiting area provided by the clinic | Health staff need to be signed in to have access to clinic meeting rooms. |
| Number of participants | Up to 6 depending on bandwidth and connectivity |
Up to 6 depending on bandwidth and connectivity |
| Examples of use | A patient waits in the waiting area for a consultation with their health professional. | Health staff use a meeting room for a case conference with a multidisciplinary team. |