How to create an encounter
Overview
This flow describes how to start an encounter for a patient at your facility. The encounter becomes the working context for the clinical records of that episode.
Pre-requisites
- The patient is registered in Care, and you open the encounter for that patient.
- You are a member of the facility, and of at least one department in it.
- If you start the encounter from an appointment, the patient has a booked or a checked-in appointment at the facility.
- If the patient already has open encounters at the facility, the number of open encounters is below the limit that your deployment sets.
- You have the permissions listed below.
Permissions
| Permission | Access |
|---|---|
| Can Create encounter | Create an encounter for a patient at the facility |
Admin, Doctor, Nurse, and Facility Admin hold this permission. Your administrator grants a role to you through a department of the facility.
Steps
1. Open the patient
Select Patients in the facility menu. Search for the patient, then select the patient.
The patient home page opens.
2. Start the encounter
Select Create Encounter. Press E on the patient home page for the same result.
The Initiate Patient Encounter panel opens.
If you start from an appointment, open the appointment and select Create Encounter there. Care links the encounter to that appointment.
3. Describe the episode
Complete the fields in the panel.
| Components | What it captures |
|---|---|
| Date and Time | The start of the episode. A future date is allowed only for a Planned encounter |
| Type of Encounter | Inpatient, Ambulatory, Observation, Emergency, Virtual, or Home Health |
| Status | Planned, In Progress, or On Hold |
| Priority | The urgency of the episode, for example Routine or Emergency |
| Tags | Labels that your facility applies to group encounters |
| Department | The department that is responsible for the episode |
Your deployment decides which types of encounter staff can select, and which type is offered first.
4. Select a department
Select Select Department, then select at least one department of the facility.
The departments you select decide who can see and act on the encounter.
5. Save the encounter
Select Create Encounter.
Care confirms with the message "Encounter created successfully", and opens the encounter.
Expected Outcome
- Care creates the encounter with the status you selected.
- Care opens the updates page of the encounter.
- The encounter accepts observations, orders, medicines, and notes.
- If you started from an appointment, Care links the appointment to the encounter.
Related
Concepts:
Flows: