Search Function

Introduction to search 

There are three ways to search for information on Spruce—within your Inbox, Team, and Contacts.

You may use the Spruce Search Bar at the top of your (web or phone) screen at any time to find what you're looking for. You can search by typing patient name, demographic information, or free text into the search bar. From the web, you may search both Conversations and Contacts from the universal Search Bar. To search Team messages you must be in your Team Inbox. From your phone, you'll need to navigate to the Contacts section to find contact information specifically. 

To start, type at least three letters in the search bar for any results to populate. For example, if you have patients Emma Jones and Emmet Harris, no results will appear when you search "Em," but both results will appear if you search "Emm."

Common searches include:

• A patient’s name, phone number, or email address
• Words or phrases you remember from the content of a message
• Conversation tags 
• Contact tags

General Search queries 

Demographic information

From the web you may find demographic information from the Search Bar regardless of what "tab" you're in. From your mobile app, demographic information may be found using the Search Bar within the Contacts section.

Patient name

Enter a partial or full first and/or last name of the patient in the search bar. Spruce will return name matches first (where the search term is the name of a patient), then message matches (where the name was used in the body of a message). 

Partial name searches will return all names that include the string of letters entered. For example, searching for John Ma would return matches such as John Matthews, John Mayer, and John Mason.

Phone number

Enter the complete or partial phone number, with or without parentheses or dashes. Spruce will return contact matches first (where the phone number is part of a patient profile), then any message matches (where the phone number was used in the body of a message).

Partial phone number searches will return any numbers that contain that string. For example, searching 206 would return both 206-555-5555 and 555-555-5206.

Email address

Enter the email address in standard email format (e.g., support@sprucehealth.com). Or enter any part of the email address (such as just sprucehealth.com) and Spruce will return contact matches first (where the address is part of a patient profile), then any message matches (where the address was used in the body of a message).

Patient date of birth

Enter the patient’s date of birth as month/day/year. Spruce will return all DOB matches based on patient demographics saved in their profile. You may use 2-digit or 4-digit year, and you may use leading zeroes or leave them off. For example, June 12, 1978 can be searched as:

• 6/12/1978
• 6/12/78
• 06/12/1978
• 06/12/78

In the “Contacts” tab in the search bar, you can enter a search and if that value is found in any custom contact field, the contact, with the custom field match, will be surfaced in the results.

Conversation and Contact Tags

From the web, you can search all conversations and contacts with a given tag. By searching, "tag:" followed by the conversation or contact tag you are looking to filter by. For example, the search "tag:A" would return all conversations that are tagged "A." There's no need to add the quotation marks in the search bar.

• To find conversations that have ANY of a list of tags, use the query "tag:" and then list the tags with a comma between them. For example, the search "tag: A, B, C" would return all conversations that have at least one of the tags: A or B or C.
• To find conversations that have ALL of a list of tags, use the query "tag:" repeatedly for multiple individual tags. For example, the search "tag: A tag: B tag: C" would return all conversations that have all of the tags A and B and C.

From a phone, you may search tags across all conversations (and across all filters) from your inbox. However, if you would like to search for tags within contacts, you must first navigate to the Contacts tab and then conduct the same search to find those records with the specific tags.

Message content and quotation marks

You can search for all messages that contain a certain word or phrase. Spruce will return all instances of messages that contain those words or phrases.

Put your search term in quotation marks to search only within message content and only for exact matches. For example, searching, feeling better (without quotation marks), would return any messages with the word feeling and/or better in any order. But searching "feeling better" (with quotation marks), will only return instances of that exact phrase in message content.

Conversation Type

There are two types of conversations on Spruce: Standard and Secure. Search: "type:secure," and Spruce will return all secure conversations across your inbox filters. Search: "type:standard," and Spruce will return all standard conversations across your inbox filters. 

Search Results 

When Spruce finds matches for your search terms, you will see a list of those matches appear below the search bar. The matching words or phrases will be highlighted in yellow, and when you select a search result, you will be directed to the exact message in the conversation that matched your search.

A single conversation will appear only once in the search results, showing the best possible match, with priority on the patient name, then the conversation title, and finally the message content.

If the matching conversation has a completed patient profile, the search results will show the patient’s name, gender, and DOB to help you confirm if that is the result you were looking for.

Search limitation

We're constantly adding more ways to search all the conversations in your inbox, but there are a few limitations as of today:

• You cannot search for a completed Spruce visit. 
• You cannot search for files or attachments within a conversation.
• You cannot search for messages in a conversation sent from a particular teammate.
• You cannot search for the exclusion of a tag (e.g., there is not a way to search for all patients who do NOT have the tag "diabetes").
• You cannot search by the date the message was sent or received. 

If you need help searching Spruce for something specific, or if you have ideas for how to make search better, please contact Spruce Support through the app, or email us at support@sprucehealth.com.