Visit coordination

An encounter connects a patient, a clinician and a visit type. The coordinator records the scheduled date, then the team follows the visit through arrival, care, review and completion. Start and end dates separate the planned appointment from the interval in which care actually happened. The encounter becomes the reference for clinical notes, observations, specimen records, medication dispensations and service charges.

The clinic can use visit type to distinguish the appointments it offers, provided the team agrees on consistent wording. A visit that is cancelled remains distinguishable from one completed after review. That distinction matters when a coordinator checks missed appointments or a reviewer examines a clinical record.

• Planned work. The coordinator assigns a patient and clinician and records when the visit is due.
• Care in progress. Arrival and start information show when a scheduled visit became an active encounter.
• Review handoff. An awaiting-review visit presents a clear queue for the Clinical Reviewer to inspect linked evidence.

Set the visit types the team will use and decide who changes a scheduled date. Agree which role marks arrival, start and end; different staff may perform these actions in a busy clinic. Define what the reviewer expects before a visit can be completed: signed note, relevant observation, consent evidence and any specimen or dispensation that occurred. Keep cancelled visits in the record so the clinic can distinguish them from work never scheduled.

When a clinician is unavailable, the coordinator should update the encounter’s clinician and check the person’s current privilege and care-team assignment. The encounter is the operational owner for that visit even when a patient’s assigned clinician differs.

A patient arrives for a scheduled eye examination. The coordinator finds the visit in Scheduled visits and records arrival. The Licensed Clinician begins care and enters observations under that encounter. A specimen collected during the visit receives its own linked record. The clinician drafts and signs a note, then the encounter is sent to review. The Clinical Reviewer reads the linked material in Encounters awaiting review and returns an unresolved issue to the care team, or approves the encounter for completion under the clinic’s review policy.

Later, the coordinator can find the visit on the Encounter timeline with its actual start and end. A service charge refers to this encounter, so the Clinical Coordinator can check which visit produced the service.

• Scheduled visits — Upcoming and arrived encounters with their patient and clinician.
• Visit status board — Visits grouped by their current care status for daily coordination.
• Encounters awaiting review — Care episodes ready for the review handoff.

See the patient visit process and clinical review.