Re: [Gnumed-devel] Prescription printing in arbitrary countries

[Karsten Hilbert]

On Sun, May 29, 2005 at 05:26:38PM -0700, Jim Busser wrote:

> Can we legitimize some (possible) differences of meaning - it may be 
> a matter of the level of breadth at which to define.
Sure. It'll help to get a better understanding of what code is
needed.

> To prescribe is to advise (e.g. a medicine) especially by an 
> authorized (written) prescription.
I fully agree. BTW can we collect those nuggets on the Wiki ?

> So at an encounter and its 
> components (encountlets) we have the possibility of a treatment plan 
> with many elements. Some will be simple things the patient can do by 
> themselves e.g. lifestyle change, over-the counter medicine which do 
> not require any "authorization" by the doctor. Yet we can argue a 
> value to being able to print the entirety of a patient's current 
> treatment plan *including* those things that do not require the 
> doctor's authorization. Yes?
Yes. Handling treatment plans (notice that we are talking
about soaP) could come in several steps:

1) simply note down the plan as the soaP entry
   - possible print that
   - I routinely do that in my practice

2) generate prescriptions
   - they are a large common part of treatment plans

3) structured explicit treatment plans
   - in the backend
   - dedicated frontend widgets
   - reaching farther than prescriptions only

Need to crawl before running.

> However we *can* constrain "prescription" to mean those parts of a 
> treatment plan that require authorization by a doctor, yes?
Agree.

> And 
> physiotherapy can be a good example of a treatment for which the 
> physiotherapist (and/or financially responsible health payer) may 
> require authorization i.e. a prescription.
Yes.

> So though when we talk about "prescription" we typically mean *drug* 
> prescription we really should be specifying *drug* prescription 
> because there are non-drug prescriptions that need to be supported.
Agree.

> So far we have a hierarchy of
> 
> - treatment plan elements
>       - treatments that the patient can do on their own
>               - can include non-prescription drugs!
>               - can of course include non-drugs
>       - treatments that require a "prescription" (doctor authorization)
>               - non-drug items
>               - drug items
This would be useful to keep on the Wiki. Helps in getting the
head clear when thinking about actually coding it up.

Karsten
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