Office Tablets

Overview

Many patients complete intake digitally before they arrive — but not everyone can. Some patients are technologically challenged, lack a smartphone or reliable internet, or simply prefer to fill out paperwork in person at your facility.

Office tablets solve that gap. Staff send a temporary, scoped form session to a dedicated tablet at the front desk; the patient completes the same patient intake forms your organization builds in Operations — including conditional questions, electronic signatures, and flagged answers — without printing paper or asking patients to log into the patient portal on their own device.

The result is a native electronic record in Avara: no manual scanning, no re-keying, and no lost clipboards.

Device Requirements

Office tablets work best with a fresh mobile device, preferably a tablet so patients have a larger screen and can read questions and tap answers comfortably.

Because patients will handle the device, treat each tablet as a shared kiosk, not a personal staff machine:

• Factory reset the device before use
• Strongly recommended: no browser logins, no personal apps, no email accounts beyond the dedicated tablet inbox, and no access to anything outside the intake workflow

The goal is a blank slate — patients should only ever see the form session your staff opens for them, not your clinic’s other tools or data.

Dedicated Email Per Tablet (Required)

Each office tablet must have its own isolated email address. This is a requirement, not a suggestion — one tablet, one inbox.

For example, a three-tablet front desk might use:

• front-office-1@your-domain.com
• front-office-2@your-domain.com
• front-office-3@your-domain.com

Log that dedicated account into the email app on the device. When staff send a session to the office tablet, Avara delivers a one-time link to that inbox. Staff open the message, the session loads in the browser, and the tablet is ready to hand to the patient.

Keeping inboxes separate per tablet prevents session collisions and makes it clear which device is active for which patient.

In-Facility Workflow

When a patient needs to complete intake on-site, follow these steps:

1. Patient needs to fill out forms in person at your facility (for example they did not complete intake before arrival, or your workflow requires day-of paperwork).
2. Open the patient’s appointment in Avara.
3. Go to Manage Forms.
4. Click Send to Office Tablet and select the tablet (email) for the device you are using.
5. On the tablet, open the email app for that device’s dedicated inbox.
6. Open the session link from the email — it launches the form in the browser.
7. Hand the tablet to the patient so they can complete the intake.
8. When they submit, they are done — responses are saved to the appointment in Avara automatically.

Staff stay in control of when a session starts and which device receives it; patients only interact with the form itself.

Session Security

Each office tablet session is designed for shared front-desk use without exposing other patients’ data.

Scoped to one appointment — The session grants access only to fill out forms for that single appointment. It is not a general login to the patient chart or portal.

One-time access — Session tokens are single use. After the patient completes the forms (or the token is consumed), access is revoked.

One active session per tablet — Each tablet can have only one active session at a time. Sending a new session to that tablet revokes unopened tokens from prior sends or interrupts an active session, so an old link in the inbox cannot be opened later to view another patient’s intake and a patient cannot remain in a stale form after staff start a new session.

Together, these rules protect against cross-patient access and reduce risk from a curious or malicious patient browsing the tablet’s email — unopened stale links stop working when superseded, and opened sessions cannot be replayed.

Why Use Office Tablets

Office tablets bridge digital intake and real-world front-desk workflows:

• No paper — Skip printing, scanning, and filing; intake lands directly in the patient record
• Full form power — Conditional logic, required fields, signatures, and staff-only flags work the same as portal or pre-visit completion
• Accessibility — Patients without devices or comfort with technology can still complete modern intake on-site
• Staff-controlled — Front desk initiates each session; patients never need Avara credentials

Configure forms under Operations and attach them to appointment types as usual — office tablets are another channel for the same form definitions, not a separate form system.

Office tablet setup is managed under Operations by users with Can Manage Operations. See Inviting Users — Can Manage Operations for permission requirements.

Only users with Can Manage Appointments can launch office tablet form-filling sessions for patients from an appointment. See Inviting Users — Can Manage Appointments for who typically has this access on your team.