Follow-up care

A care task belongs to a patient and an assigned person. It records the task text, due date, completed date, and a status. Clinical Coordinator can coordinate follow-up while Licensed Clinician can record work assigned to the care team. The patient’s task list stays separate from a particular encounter, which is useful when the same patient has several visits and the follow-up continues between them.

Open, in progress, Completed, Escalated, and Cancelled describe different outcomes. An Escalated task still needs attention; it should not disappear into completed work. A Completed task can carry the date it was finished. The due date helps a coordinator see what needs action without inferring urgency from the order in which records were created.

• Assignment. Clinical Coordinator chooses the patient, task, due date, and responsible person.
• Work. Licensed Clinician sees their tasks and updates progress as care continues.
• Exception. Clinical Coordinator checks escalated and overdue items and clarifies the next owner.

Agree how specific task descriptions should be, when a due date is required, and who can change an assignment. Decide what Escalated means in the clinic’s routine and how the assigned person should alert Clinical Coordinator. Cancellation needs a deliberate reason in the operating practice so a cancelled follow-up is not mistaken for a completed one.

A task points to a person, while the person can be linked to a user account. Check that this link is correct before relying on the personal task screen. A patient also has an assigned clinician, but that is a different relationship from the person assigned to a task. The task owner should be the person expected to act, even when the patient’s ongoing clinician is someone else.

After a visit, the clinician asks for a follow-up call. Clinical Coordinator creates a patient task with a due date and assigns it to a Licensed Clinician who will call. That clinician finds it in their own list, marks it in progress when work begins, and records completion when finished. The coordinator can still see the patient link and completed date.

For a second case, the assigned person cannot finish by the due date. Mark the task Escalated and review who will handle it. If the clinic changes the assignee, confirm the new person sees the task in their panel. Check the patient number before updating the task so two patients with similar names do not exchange follow-up work. This rehearsal covers the practical handoff across visits.

• Open Care Tasks — Review open, in-progress, and escalated patient work by assignee and due date.
• My Care Tasks — See tasks assigned to the current person.
• My Patient Panel — Check the patient context before acting on follow-up.

See clinical documentation and encounter intake.