[Gnumed-devel] how and when to select encounter type

[Karsten Hilbert]

Hi all,

while putting the finishing touches on the first version of
client remote control (see tentative roadmap item #4 at
 http://mail.gnu.org/archive/html/gnumed-devel/2003-06/msg00045.html
) I stumbled upon the question of when to start an encounter.

Hardliners might argue that any time I do anything with a
patient's record or file or chart is an encounter (of suitable
type, not always with the patient involved). Given this
assumption we'd have to ask for the type of encounter anytime
we select a patient. A default encounter type (per patient)
would be remembered.

Another approach would be to delay asking for the type of
encounter until something get's written to the patient's
clinical (?) record. The question arises whether that's
sufficient and whether we'd want to record "administrative"
encounters as such as well (say, the patient just comes in to
change her address details). This approach would allow to
avoid creating an encounter when just looking up some data,
say, revisiting a stored referral report for memory jogging.

Now, what do you say, which way shall we go ? Or shall we make
that configurable (easy, technically) ?

Karsten
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