Hello! My team and I are introducing a feature to our platform that will allow users to create different types of "notes" (which can range from critical medical incidents to a more general note). We would love your input on how we are planning to handle this data. Our current approach is as follows: 1. Each "note" will be an "Encounter" created 2. Depending on the type of encounter, additional fields on the

Encounter

will hold pertinent information. For example, if the patient was hospitalized, the

hospitalization

field will contain relevant information. 3. Depending on the type of note, other resources may or may not get created with a reference to the corresponding encounter. For example, Encounters with types

infection

or

injury

may include a

Condition

or

Observation

resource. 4. Comments about the note will be stored in

Communication

resources with a reference to the corresponding encounter. 5. Practitioners will be able to update the

status

of

Encounters

as they get resolved. I would love some feedback on if this is a sound approach for tracking various types of patient data that may come up. Are there alternative/additional resources we should be thinking about? Thank you for the support!

Hi @kwillard95 , i'm sorry for the delayed reply here: - In general, an Encounter is used to record an patient / provider interaction. I wouldn't recommend this for a general "Note" - In general, we found that having a general purpose "note" resource type ends up being an anti-pattern. Clinicians will put all kinds of important medical information into the "note" field in an unstructured/semi-structured form, which can make it harder to utilize later. - Our general recommendation is to use the proper resource type for each incident type, even if you display them as "notes" Taking your examples: - Hospitalization -> Encounter. Use Encounter to store any visit / interaction with cliniicians - Allergies -> AllergyIntolerance. - Health Issues -> Condition. Used to store ongoing health issues about the patient - Clinical Measurements -> Observations. Used for point-in-time quantitative/qualitative measurements of the patient (e.g. smoking status, heart rate, BP) - Adverse Reactions -> DetectedIssue; Used to model a specific clinical indicent (e.g. drug-drug interaction, inappropriate dose) suffered by the patient - Flag -> Catch all for non-clinical alerts to note about the patient (e.g. has a big dog). Use as a last resort