Usage scenarios

The following are supported usage scenarios for this profile:

• Query for a specific patient encounter
• Query for all patient encounters
• Record or update a patient encounter

Comparison with other national and international IGs

A resource conforming to this profile:

• MAY be conformant to US Core Encounter if Encounter.type is supplied

No equivalent International Patient Access or International Patient Summary profile.

Conformance in reverse is not guaranteed, i.e. a resource conforming to US Core MAY NOT conform to AU Core.

Profile specific implementation guidance

• The use of coding can vary significantly across systems, requesters need to understand that they may encounter codes they do not recognise and be prepared to handle those resources appropriately. Responders SHOULD populate Encounter.code.text and/or Encounter.code.coding.display so that requesters can at least display the condition even if the requester does not recognise the code supplied.
• The Encounter resource can represent a reason as a code with Encounter.reasonCode, or a reference with Encounter.reasonReference to a Condition or other resource.
  • Although both are marked as Must Support, responders are not required to support both a code and a reference, but they SHALL support at least one of these elements
  • A requester SHALL support both elements

Below is an overview of the mandatory and optional search parameters and combined search parameters. See the AU Core CapabilityStatements for a complete list of supported RESTful interactions for this IG.

FHIR search operations are described here and the syntax used to describe AU Core interactions is defined here.

Any search parameter defined in FHIR may be ‘allowed’ by the system unless explicitly marked as “SHALL NOT”. A few items are marked as MAY in this implementation guide to highlight their potential relevance.

Mandatory Search Parameters:

The following search parameters and search parameter combinations SHALL be supported:

1. SHALL support searching using the patient search parameter:
   • SHOULD support chained searching of patient canonical identifier patient.identifier (e.g. patient.identifier=[system|][code])

   GET [base]/Encounter?patient={Type/}[id] or optionally GET [base]/Encounter?patient.identifier=[system|][code]

   Example:

   1. GET [base]/Encounter?patient=5678
   2. GET [base]/Encounter?patient.identifier=http://ns.electronichealth.net.au/id/medicare-number|32788511952
   3. GET [base]/Encounter?patient.identifier=http://ns.electronichealth.net.au/id/hi/ihi/1.0|8003608833357361

   Implementation Notes: Fetches a bundle of all Encounter resources for the specified patient (how to search by reference and how to search by token)

2. SHALL support searching using the combination of the patient and date search parameters:
   • SHOULD support chained searching of patient canonical identifier patient.identifier (e.g. patient.identifier=[system|][code])
   • SHALL support these date comparators: gt,lt,ge,le
   • SHOULD support multipleAnd search on date (e.g.date=[date]&date=[date]]&...)

   GET [base]/Encounter?patient={Type/}[id]&date={gt|lt|ge|le}[date]{&date={gt|lt|ge|le}[date]&...}

   Example:

   1. GET [base]/Encounter?patient=5678&date=ge2020-01-01T00:00:00Z

   Implementation Notes: Fetches a bundle of all Encounter resources for the specified patient and date (how to search by reference and how to search by date)

Optional Search Parameters:

The following search parameters and search parameter combinations SHOULD be supported:

1. SHOULD support searching using the combination of the patient and class search parameters:
   • SHOULD support chained searching of patient canonical identifier patient.identifier (e.g. patient.identifier=[system|][code])

   GET [base]/Encounter?patient={Type/}[id]&class={system|}[code]

   Example:

   1. GET [base]/Encounter?patient=5678&class=http://terminology.hl7.org/CodeSystem/v3-ActCode|AMB

   Implementation Notes: Fetches a bundle of all Encounter resources for the specified patient and class (how to search by reference and how to search by token)

2. SHOULD support searching using the combination of the patient and location search parameters:
   • SHOULD support chained searching of patient canonical identifier patient.identifier (e.g. patient.identifier=[system|][code])

   GET [base]/Encounter?patient={Type/}[id]&location={Type/}[id]

   Example:

   1. GET [base]/Encounter?patient=5678&location=Location/vic-hospital

   Implementation Notes: Fetches a bundle of all Encounter resources matching the specified patient and location (how to search by reference)

3. SHOULD support searching using the combination of the patient and status search parameters:
   • SHOULD support chained searching of patient canonical identifier patient.identifier (e.g. patient.identifier=[system|][code])
   • SHALL support multipleOr search on status (e.g.status={system|}[code],{system|}[code],...)

   GET [base]/Encounter?patient={Type/}[id]&&status={system|}[code]{,{system|}[code],...}

   Example:

   1. GET [base]/Encounter?patient=5678&status=finished

   Implementation Notes: Fetches a bundle of all Encounter resources matching the specified patient and status (how to search by reference) and how to search by token).