Follow-up care

A care task names the work, patient, assigned person and due date. Its status distinguishes open, in progress, completed, escalated and cancelled work; a completion date records when the work finished. After a visit, the Licensed Clinician can create a specific follow-up action for the patient rather than leaving a general reminder in the visit note. The assignee has a personal list, while the coordinator can see open and escalated work across the practice.

• Named task. Each task belongs to a patient and an assigned person, with a due date for the next action.
• Work state. Open, in progress and escalated records remain visible until the team resolves them.
• Completion evidence. The completed date should match the action; cancellation remains a separate outcome.

Agree what counts as a care task, which work should be assigned to a clinician and how soon a due date should be set. Define when staff escalate a task and who responds to that escalation. A completed task needs a completed date that matches the actual action. Cancelled work should stay distinguishable from completed work so a patient is not assumed to have received follow-up that never happened.

Take a visit that needs a check-in after the next appointment. Record a short task with the correct patient, named assignee and due date. Have the assignee find it in their list, begin it and record its completion. Repeat with a task that cannot be finished on time: the assignee marks it escalated and the coordinator can find it in the open-task view. Check both records from the patient’s perspective.

An escalated task still needs an assigned person and a due date. The coordinator can inspect that queue and agree with the clinician who will respond. When the action is done, the clinician records the completion date. A cancelled task stays distinct so staff do not mistake it for care delivered.

• Open care tasks — Open the relevant records and check their current status before work begins.
• My care tasks — Inspect the linked person, date and evidence before the next handoff.

Follow the care process and the access model. For setup sequence, see implementation.