Appointments

By appointments we mean all (shorter) contact moments that a patient has with a care provider at the hospital. This may concern, for example, a routine check-up with the dematologist, a follow-up appointment, an intake appointment with the orthopaedic surgeon that will perform the patient's hip replacement surgery or a telephone consultation with a dietician. Other encounter types such as admissions to the daycare unit or clinical admissions cannot be found with this search term type, for those the admissions and connected Admission periods search terms are used.

A care activity such as an MRI or EKG is often also recorded in an appointment. A linked care activity (procedure) will also be available in the data.

Usually these are shorter encounters. This category does not encompass clinical admissions! These are mapped to the admissions and admission periods nested search terms.

Overview

Filter name in app	Priority	FHIR field	Brief description	Example data
ID	Must have	Appointment.identifier.value, Encounter.identifier.value	Unique identifier for appointment.
DBC ID	N/A	Not yet mapped	NL-specific: Unique ID of the DBC code (diagnosis-treatment-combination) that the appointment is linked to.
Episode of care ID	Could have	Not yet mapped	Unique identifier of the Episode of Care that the appointment is linked to. I.e. indicates context in which the appointment took place.
Description	Must have	Appointment.description, Encounter.class.display	Description of the appointment type.	Phone consultation, follow-up appointment, blood collection.
Appointment code	Must have	Appointment.description, Encounter.class.code	Code linked to the appointment description.	SHE, ABC, 1234
Duration	Should have	Appointment.end & Appointment.start, Encounter.period.end & Encounter.period.start	Planned duration of the appointment, expressed in minutes.	10 min, 30 min, 120 min.
Age at time of event	Must have	Derived from Patient (Appointment.participant.actor (Patient), Encounter.subject)	Age of the patient, in years, when the appointment started.
Status	Must have	Appointment.status, Encounter.status	Status of the appointment.	Completed, planned, cancelled, rescheduled, done.
Type	Could have	Appointment.appointmentType.coding.code, Encounter.type.coding.display	Extra information on the appointment category.	Follow-up, first, regular check-up.
Specialism	Must have	Appointment.specialty (extension), Encounter: not yet mapped	Specialism that is performing the appointment.	Gastroenterology, endocrinology, oncology
Department	Should have	Appointment.department (extension), Encounter.department (extension)	Department in the hospital the appointment is with.	Radiology and nuclear medicine, dietetics
Location	Should have	Appointment.actor (Location), Encounter.location	The location (hospital building) where the appointment takes place.	Location east, location south.
Service provider	Could have	Encounter.serviceProvider	Institution or service or person that executes the appointment.	Psychologist, general practitioner, EKG outpatient clinic, gastroenterology functional examination.
Care provider name	Should have	Derived from Practitioner (Appointment.participant.actor (Practitioner), Encounter.participant.individual)	Name of the care provider the appointment is with.	Dr. Jane Doe, nurse John Doe.
Care provider position	Should have	Derived from Practitioner (Appointment.participant.actor (Practitioner), Encounter.participant.individual)	Position of the care provider that the appointment is with.	Neurologist, dietician, doctor-in-training.
Start date	Must have	Appointment.start, Encounter.period.start	Start date and -time of the appointment.	DD-MM-YYYY hh:mm
End date	Must have	Appointment.end, Encounter.period.end	End date and -time of the appointment.	DD-MM-YYYY hh:mm