The operational decision
Make exceptional closures easy to find before callers travel to the office. An office-hours answer is a public operating fact, not evidence that a clinician can see someone. Keep the opening schedule separate from appointment availability, telephone staffing and the building access schedule.
Prepare the workflow
Use dated exceptions with a named year; remove last year's holiday message instead of leaving both versions in the knowledge set.
Example wording for approval
“The example office is closed on the listed holiday and reopens the following business day. Please check the dated office notice for the current schedule.”
Worked example
An office sheet lists a Thursday closure and Friday reopening, while last year's website banner says closed all weekend. The editor should obtain this year's dated instruction, remove the old banner and test a question mentioning Friday explicitly. The accepted answer names the reopening day without referring to a personal visit. Leaving both notices available and expecting the assistant to infer which year applies is not a completed holiday update.
Handoff record
Record these task-specific fields: holiday date, year, reopening date, approval owner.
Acceptance check
Ask about this year's closure and last year's date. The system should use the current approved notice and decline unsupported historical guesses.
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