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Managing your availability

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Managing your availability is a critical component of patient safety. At WithinLabs, managing availability ensures that the bridge between medical expertise and patient care never breaks.

Here is a breakdown of why managing availability is paramount for our documentation and operations.

1. Continuity of Care​

Healthcare is a 24/7 industry. Unlike standard SaaS products where a 30-minute outage is an inconvenience, in healthcare, it can delay life-saving treatments or critical diagnostic data.

  • Real-time Access: Clinicians rely on our platform for up-to-the-minute patient data.
  • Dependency Management: If our services are down, downstream pharmacy orders or surgical schedules may be disrupted.

2. Regulatory Compliance & HIPAA​

The HIPAA Security Rule explicitly requires "Availability" as one of its three pillars (alongside Confidentiality and Integrity).

  • Legal Mandate: We are legally obligated to ensure that protected health information (PHI) is accessible to authorized users when needed.
  • Audit Readiness: Maintaining high availability and having documented failover procedures is essential for passing regulatory audits.

3. Provider Trust and Burnout​

Healthcare providers work in high-stress environments. Technology should be a tool, not a barrier.

  • Frictionless Workflow: When systems are unavailable, providers are forced into manual "paper backups," which increases the risk of human error.
  • Trust: Consistent uptime builds trust with hospital systems and private practices, ensuring WithinLabs remains a reliable partner in their clinical workflow.

4. Patient Outcomes and Safety​

The ultimate "North Star" for WithinLabs is the patient.

  • Emergency Situations: In urgent care scenarios, seconds matter. High availability ensures that critical alerts and data reach the physician instantly.
  • Data Integrity: Sudden downtime can lead to desynchronized data or partial record updates, which poses a risk to accurate diagnosis.

STEPS

  • Select SCHEDULE on the task pane
  • Click CREATE at the top right part of your screen
  • Select the Availability Tab
  • Fill in the fields accordingly
  • Click Save Availability

Availability controls when clients can actually book with a clinician, so calendars stay accurate, personal time is protected, and online requests only appear in the right windows.

Overview​

The Manage Clinician Availability feature lets you define when, where, and how each clinician is available, instead of just opening up generic practice hours. By adding structured availability blocks, you can control which locations and services are offered at specific times, and keep the system from offering appointments when someone is off.

Steps to update a clinician’s availability​

  • Navigate: Go to the Schedule or Calendar tab.
  • Start a new availability block: Click Create and select Availability (or open the availability/gear menu and choose to add availability).
  • Select clinician: Make sure you are viewing or editing the correct clinician’s calendar (for example, Dr. Smith).
  • Choose location: Pick the Location where this clinician will be available (office, telehealth, or a specific site), since availability must be tied to at least one location.
  • Add recurring schedule: Set the weekly working hours by choosing the day(s), start time, end time, and whether this repeats every week or until a specific end date.
  • Save: Click Save Availability to apply the block so those times can be offered for scheduling and online appointment requests.

Default availability behavior​

If a clinician does not create any personal availability, the practice’s operational hours can be used as their default availability window so they can still be booked during general open hours. As soon as that clinician adds their own availability blocks, those clinician-specific rules take priority and give you more precise control over when they can be scheduled.

Tips and tricks​

  • Create separate availability blocks for different locations or services (for example, mornings in-office, afternoons telehealth) to make scheduling more efficient.
  • Use out-of-office events or blocks for vacations and one-off changes instead of editing your base availability every time your schedule shifts.