Patients and encounters

Clinical Coordinator creates the patient identity, records the contact details used by the care team and names an assigned clinician. A scheduled encounter then identifies the patient, the clinician, the visit type and when the work is expected. Keeping those two records separate lets the team review a person’s history without treating every visit as a new person.

The coordinator uses encounter status to distinguish a scheduled episode from one that has arrived, started, entered review or finished. A cancelled episode remains visible with its own state. This helps a reviewer focus on work awaiting a decision while a clinician sees the episodes assigned to them. The Business Overview page gives the team an intake and current-state overview; the encounter record carries the episode details.

• Patient identity. The patient number and display name identify the person; an assigned clinician links ongoing responsibility to a staff record.
• Encounter timing. Scheduled, start and end dates describe the episode’s planned and actual course.
• Review state. The coordinator moves the episode into review after care evidence is recorded, and the reviewer examines that evidence before closure.

Choose who maintains patient identity and who can correct a duplicate or outdated contact. Decide which visit types staff will use in ordinary work, and when a coordinator changes an encounter from scheduled to arrived. Agree how the assigned clinician differs from the clinician on a particular encounter. The former belongs to the patient record; the latter describes the person responsible for that episode.

Also decide what counts as enough evidence for review. A completed encounter is a meaningful operational state only if the team has checked the associated note, observation or medication record that the episode required. Give the Clinical Reviewer a clear review queue and define who makes the final status change.

Take a patient scheduled for a medication visit. The coordinator selects the existing patient, assigns the clinician and records the scheduled time. At arrival, the encounter moves forward. The clinician records the work against that same encounter. When it is ready for review, the reviewer can find the episode and its linked evidence without searching by a loosely typed patient name. The coordinator closes it after review and can still distinguish it from a cancelled or unfinished visit.

• Scheduled encounters — See upcoming episodes with patient, clinician, date and current state.
• Encounter review queue — Focus on episodes awaiting evidence review.
• My encounters — Give each clinician a focused list of assigned episodes.

Follow intake and review and consent and access.