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CEP-7: Scheduling in CARE

Motive​

Care is being used in different healthcare environments for various use-cases, including consultation scheduling, OT scheduling, vaccination appointment scheduling, and other appointment management needs. A robust and flexible scheduling system is essential for efficient healthcare delivery and resource management.

Requirements​

1. Appointment Booking​

  • The system shall allow staff members to book appointments for patients.
  • Appointments can be scheduled for future dates or as walk-ins for the current day.
  • The system shall support different appointment types, including:
    • New patient appointments
    • Follow-up appointments
  • The system shall allow doctors to specify days for specific appointment types (e.g., follow-ups only on certain days).
  • Appointments may include multiple participants or be linked to other objects. For example, a procedure could be an object with a team associated with it, and the team would consist of the participants involved in the appointment.
  • Future Scope: The system shall provide a public-facing webpage where users can book their own appointments.

2. Resource Management​

  • Doctors shall be considered as schedulable resources within the system.
  • Doctors shall have the ability to manage their own schedules.
  • The system shall allow authorized staff members to manage doctors' schedules on their behalf.
  • The system shall support flexible scheduling options, including:
    • Fixed slot durations (e.g., 15-minute intervals)
    • Daily patient limits (e.g., maximum of 20 patients per day)

3. Availability Management​

  • The system shall have the capability to show availability of resources (doctors, rooms, equipment, etc.).
  • Doctors shall be able to set their available days and times.
  • Doctors shall have the option to mark certain periods as unavailable.
  • Doctors shall be able to specify which days in the future they can be booked.
  • The system shall respect all availability settings when allowing appointments to be booked.
  • The system shall support recurring availability patterns (e.g., available every Monday and Wednesday, 9 AM to 5 PM).
  • Authorized staff members shall be able to view and modify availability settings on behalf of doctors, subject to appropriate permissions.

4. Check-in and Encounter Management​

  • The system shall provide a check-in function for when patients arrive at the facility.
  • An encounter shall only be created in the system upon patient check-in.
  • The system shall automatically manage a token system for patient queuing. (mix of appointments + walk-ins) [Logic is an open challenge to be tackled with Roopak]
  • The system shall implement a check-in based priority system that automatically manages appointments and walk-ins.
  • The check-in process shall update the patient's queue position based on their appointment time and arrival time.

5. Priority Management​

  • The system shall support different levels of patient priority.
  • Staff shall have the ability to prioritize a VIP patient in the queue.
  • The system shall provide clear visibility of the current queue order to staff members.
  • The priority management system shall be flexible enough to accommodate emergency situations.

6. Appointment Statuses​

  • The system shall support multiple statuses for scheduled visits, including but not limited to:
    • Scheduled
    • Checked In
    • In Progress
    • Completed
    • Cancelled
    • No Show
  • The system shall allow for status updates throughout the appointment lifecycle.

7. Location-based Scheduling​

  • The system shall support the registration and booking of various locations, including but not limited to Operating Theaters.
  • This implementation shall be generic, allowing extension to support other types of location-based scheduling (e.g., vaccination appointment scheduling).
  • Users with appropriate access rights shall be able to book locations.
  • Location schedules shall be manageable by designated managers (can be the owner of the location schedule).
  • The system shall support the handling of emergency cases that may affect location schedules.

8. User Permissions​

  • The system shall implement role-based access control for scheduling functions.
  • Specific permissions shall be required for managing doctors' schedules on their behalf.
  • Location booking shall be restricted to authorized doctors and staff members.

9. Flexibility and Customization​

  • The system shall allow for customization of appointment durations based on doctor or appointment type preferences.
  • The system shall support different scheduling rules for different departments or specialties.

10. Notifications​

  • The system shall send notifications to relevant staff members for schedule changes, new bookings, and cancellations.
  • Future: Allow SMS and whatsapp confirmations for patients

11. Audit Trail​

  • The system shall maintain a comprehensive audit trail of all scheduling actions, including creations, modifications, and cancellations.
  • It shall support comments that can be added by users with access to the object.

12. Future Beckn Integration​

  • The architecture shall be flexible enough to accommodate Beckn protocols and standards for interoperable scheduling.