2011/10/3 Jim Busser
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"Group visits" are a type of encounter in which more than one patient (not from the same family) agrees to be seen by the doctor many-to-on (instead of one on one), for purposes which may include:
- education about a particular disease
- education about a treatment (e.g. surgery) that has been booked or which is available
- getting questions answered; I suppose the questions may, in some cases, express what has been going on with their own individual cases, where the patients choose to make this disclosure to the rest of the group.
Does anyone have experience with these kinds of visits, and therefore know (and be able to advise) what an EMR might need to capture them?
In Brasil we have a HEalth System that is turning towards Family Medicine. In our case we have regular "programs" :
Hypertension / Diabetic
Pregnant
Children
Mental Health
Our current EMR lets us make a "program visit" and add each patient to that visit. So we have to make a standard SOAP , say "Patient was present on the Pregnant program - discussed contraception after delivery" and we would add all the patients presents to the program via a widget.
It will appear in their chart for any eventual future consult (say she says to her employer she was at that time in the program reunion, we can vouch for her if it is in the chart).
Rogerio
PS: This is not a "we need this feature" or anything like that, its just a comment on how the system works