Re: [Health] A few questions about GNU Health workflow

[Luis Falcon]

Hi Hedayat !

On Wed, Nov 30, 2011 at 10:42 AM, Hedayat Vatankhah
<address@hidden> wrote:
> Hi again!
>
> I'm trying to understand the GNU Health workflow, and have some problems in
> these areas:
Let me try to answer them
>
> 1. Apparently, a newborn is not registered in GNU Health system as a
> patient. Is this true and isn't it possible to relate a newborn with a
> patient? For example, what if we want to record the results of a CBC test
> for a newborn?
Yes. A newborn has an identification code (same as the ID place in the
wristband). After he or she is registered by the authorities, will be
given a "legal entity".
Many procedures can be stored at the newborn forms (congenital
diseases, reflex, APGAR, medications, vaccines ... ). If you need a
lab test, you could always add the ID of the newborn for the test.
>
> 2. How is an operator expected to assign beds to patients? I think it is
> expected to be done using the Hospitalization section. There are two issues
> here: 1. Isn't there anywhere where you can see an overview of the status of
> the beds of a specific ward? 2. Should we change the status of a bed
> manually? For example, I expected that when I hospitalize a patient in a
> bed, its status is automatically changed to occupied. But it seems that it
> is not available. And how a bed is reserved?!

The bed is taken at the moment of making the reservation ("confirm").
At this point, GNU Health checks in real time if that specific bed is
free during the period of the hospitalization. At this point, only the
reservation is made. You assign the actual bed at the moment of
Admission.

The bed will be released when the patient is discharged from the institution.

You can check the status on the hospitalization tree. You can search
by combinations of registration IDs, bed number, status (free,
confirm, patient hospitalized... ).

>
> 3. What is the workflow for requesting a lab test and providing the results?
> This is what I have found:
>
> * Creating a lab request: Open the "Lab Test Requests" page, creating a new
> record and save it. Personally, I expect that this is all I should do to
> request a lab test. But then, how lab staff should report the result?
> Apparently, this is what should happen: I should go to Lab requests page,
> select a request which status is "Draft", push the not-very-obvious button
> "launch action" and "Create Lab Test". A page is opened which is almost
> empty. Then, I push "Create Lab Test" button again. A new page in "lab
> results" page opens with a new test listed there. At this point, the status
> of the request is changed to "Tested" while I have not added any test
> results yet (which is not a good thing IMHO). Another point is that if you
> open a new "Lab results" page at this point, you cannot distinguish between
> tests with actual results and tests which do not have any results. Yes, the
> lab staff can input the results for the test now.
>
The Lab request workflow is as follows

Health -> Lab requests -> Create Lab request

This will create the specific lab test analytes for that patient.
You're right. "Tested" is not the right term. We will use the term
"Generated", meaning the test has been created.

The lab test result will then show the values once the analytes have
been processed in the laboratory.

In most cases, these values will be added automatically, interfacing
with a LIMS, so no "human input" will be necessary.

Finally, the best way to see the patient lab results is from the
patient form, where you have the related lab tests incorporated to the
patient history.

Hope it helps.

Best

> I wonder if it is the expected workflow for laboratory.
>
>
> Thanks in advance,
>
> Hedayat
>
>



-- 
Luis Falcon
GNU Health
http://health.gnu.org