Overview:

This article will describe in detail the steps necessary to join the video consultation that you scheduled with your patient using the TDO Live Consult/Google Calendar Sync feature.

Prerequisites:

Doctor Prerequisites:

TDO Live Consult/Google Calendar Sync configured and running.

GSuite account (NOT just a Google Account). If your email accounts are provided through your TDO Cloud subscription, they are GSuite accounts. If you’re not sure if you have a GSuite account, consult your IT professional.

Computer or smartphone with suitable quality camera and microphone.

 

Patient Prerequisites:

TDO Live Consult appointment scheduled with your practice.

Computer or smartphone with suitable quality camera and microphone.

If they are going to use the Meet app on a smartphone, they must have a Google account.

Detailed Instructions:

Starting the Meet from desktop (on the doctor’s end):

Starting a few minutes before the consult (time permitting):

1. In your preferred browser (though Google Chrome is most optimized for this purpose), open meet.google.com. Check to make sure that you’re logged into the correct GSuite account by clicking in the upper right corner of the screen. If necessary, click ’Switch account’ to switch to the correct Google account.

2. Then, you should see a list of upcoming Meets. Click on the meeting that you wish to join.

3. You’re now prepared to start the meeting. Click ’Join now’

4. Once you have joined the meeting, you’ll see a screen like the one below, with various controls including the ability to mute yourself, present your screen, open a text chat, etc.

 

Starting the Meet from a mobile device (on the doctor’s end):

1. Install Hangouts Meet by Google from the App Store [for iOS] or on the Google Play store [for Android]. 

2. Open the Meet app

 on your mobile device.

3. Check that you are logged into the correct Google account by clicking on the menu button (3 horizontal lines in the upper left corner).

4. Swipe up on the bottom tab to see a list of your upcoming meetings.

5. Click on a meeting from the list.

6. Click ’Join meeting’ to join the meeting.

Now that you’ve started the meeting, the patient can join.

 

How the patient opens the meeting link will depend on whether they are joining from desktop or Mobile.

 

Joining the Meet from desktop (on the patient’s end): 

1. Open the email invitation they received from you (or the calendar event, if they already clicked ’Yes’ and added to their Calendar), and click the link in the ’Joining info’ section.

2. Enter their name and then click ’Ask to join’ (if they are already logged into a Google Account on the browser they are joining from, their name will simply display as the name they set for that Google Account, and they won’t be prompted to enter a name).

3. They have now successfully joined the meeting and you can begin the consultation.

Joining the meeting from mobile (on the patient’s end):

1. Open the email invitation they received from you (or the calendar event, if they already confirmed and added to their Calendar), and click the link in the ’Joining info’ section.

2. If they don’t already have it installed, they will be prompted to install the Hangouts Meet app for their respective device.

3. If they don’t already have a Google account (either GMail or GSuite), they will be prompted to create one.

4. Once they have installed and signed into the Meet app, they can ’Ask to join’

Whichever method the patient uses to join the meeting, you, the organizer, may have to click ’Admit’ to grant them access to the meeting.

 

Recording the Meeting

 You may wish to record the live consult for later review. Follow the instructions below to record the meeting. You can only start the recording if you are using Google Meet from a desktop computer and you are the meeting organizer, or in the same organization as the meeting organizer (so the doctor’s account should be able to start the recording).

1. Start or Join the scheduled TDO Live Consult meeting.

2. Click the ’More’ button (three dots stacked vertically).

3. Click ’Record meeting’

4. A message will display asking you to obtain consent from other meeting participants (i.e. the patient). Once you have obtained consent from the patient, click ’Accept’

5. The ’REC’ icon will display while recording is ongoing. 

 

6. Once the meeting is over, click ’More’ > ’Stop recording’

7. You’ll see a message notifying you that the recording will be saved in your Google Drive. Click ’Stop recording’

8. You (the meeting organizer) will receive an email with a link to open the meeting recording in Google Drive

9. Alternatively, you can open Google Drive yourself, and navigate to the ’Meet Recordings’ folder, which you should find in the root directory

10. You can now download or play the meeting recording.

 

Standalone Meeting

You may sometimes wish to start a Google Meet meeting without creating an appointment in TDO. For example, you may have to do an emergency consult with a patient, or you may want to meet with a referrer. In order to do so:

1. First log into your GSuite account

2. Navigate to meet.google.com

3. Click ’Join or start a meeting’

4. Enter a nickname for your meeting (no special characters allowed)

5. Once the meeting loads, click ’Join Now’

6. The meeting will launch and you’ll see the screen pictured below. Click ’Add People’

7. Enter the email address of the person that you want to join the meeting

8. The recipient will receive an email with instructions on how to join the meeting.

 

Important Considerations

You may have noticed that, if they join on a desktop computer, the patients can join the meeting without a Google account. So for patients who both a) Have a quality microphone and camera (usually a USB webcam) attached to their desktop computer and b) Do not have a Google account, it may be easier to have them join the meeting from desktop rather than mobile.

See also this link for more info on this topic from Google.