Note: This version is in draft and is currently being migrated from the Appointment Management specification.
Appointment consumer sessions
The Appointment Management consumer application makes use of individual API calls described in 'API use cases' to perform business processes.
Consumer session - booking an appointment
The sequence diagram below illustrates which individual API calls are required by a consumer (that is, the patient using a consumer application) to book an appointment at a GP practice in the simplest case. It describes interactions of the consumer system with the provider FHIR endpoint at the practice.
Sequence diagram for booking an appointment - simplest case:
| Step | Description |
|---|---|
| 1a | Consumer makes an API call to How to search for free slots at the practice in the specified timeframe. |
| 1b | Provider responds with details of what slots are available for booking. Should no applicable slots be returned, the consumer may make repeated calls to How to search for free slots with amended date ranges. |
| 2a | Consumer calls How to book an appointment indicating the slots selected in the UI together with the logical ID of the patient. |
| 2b | Provider responds with details of the booked appointment as confirmation of success. |
Consumer session - booking an appointment at a collection of federating practices
Where a consumer user interface provides a view of available bookings across a collection of federating practices, some steps are repeated for each practice, as shown below:
Sequence diagram for booking an appointment - no patient found:
| Step | Description |
|---|---|
| Repeat step 1 for each federated practice to gain a view of slot availability across the federation. | |
| 1a | Consumer makes an API call to How to search for free slots at the practice in the specified timeframe. |
| 1b | Provider responds with details of what slots are available for booking. Should no applicable slots be returned, the consumer may make repeated calls to How to search for free slots with amended date ranges. |
| 2a | Consumer calls How to book an appointment indicating the slots selected in the UI together with the logical ID of the patient. |
| 2b | Provider responds with details of the booked appointment as confirmation of success. |