← Knowledge library

Clinical care

Encounter

Definition An encounter in MANSOQ records one interaction between a patient and your facility. The interaction is an outpatient visit, an admission, an observation stay, an emergency visit, a virtual consultation, or a home visit. The encounter…

3.1 · versioned documentation · 7 min read

Definition

An encounter in MANSOQ records one interaction between a patient and your facility. The interaction is an outpatient visit, an admission, an observation stay, an emergency visit, a virtual consultation, or a home visit. The encounter groups everything the care team records for that interaction. A patient can have more than one open encounter at the same facility at the same time.

Note: Your deployment sets the maximum number of open encounters for one patient at a facility. The default maximum is 5.

MANSOQ follows the FHIR R5 Encounter resource. An encounter links to these records:

Key Attributes

Components What it captures
Status The current state of the encounter, for example In Progress.
Type of Encounter The type of care, for example Inpatient or Ambulatory. The update form calls this field Encounter Class.
Priority The urgency of the care, for example Emergency or Routine.
Date and Time The date and time when the encounter starts.
Discharge Date and Time The date and time when the facility discharges the patient.
Hospital Identifier A free-text reference number that your facility uses, such as an IP, OP, OBS or EMR number.
Departments The facility departments that answer for the encounter.
Care team The staff who look after the patient, each with a clinical role.
Current location The bed, room or ward that the patient occupies.
Tags Labels that your facility configures.
Hospitalization details The admission and discharge information for a patient who stays at the facility.
Discharge Summary Advice Free text that the team writes for the patient at discharge.

Departments

Each encounter needs at least one department. The departments control who can see the encounter. To change them, see Manage Encounter departments.

Care team

The care team lists the staff who look after the patient. Each member holds a clinical role. One member carries the primary marker. To change the team, see Manage the Encounter care team.

Tags

Your facility configures the tags. MANSOQ groups them in these categories:

Type of Encounter

Type of Encounter Description
Inpatient Patient is admitted to the hospital.
Ambulatory Patient visits for outpatient care.
Observation Patient is under observation.
Emergency Mark as emergency if immediate attention is required.
Virtual Virtual/telehealth consultation.
Home Health Care provided at patient's home.

Note: Your deployment decides which types staff can choose. Your deployment also decides which type MANSOQ preselects.

Priority

The priority states how urgent the care is. MANSOQ offers these priorities:

Note: Routine is the default priority on the create form.

Hospitalization details

Hospitalization details appear only for the Inpatient, Observation and Emergency types.

Components What it captures
Re-Admission Whether the patient comes back for the same problem.
Admit Source Where the patient came from.
Discharge Disposition Where the patient goes after discharge.
Diet Preference The dietary requirement of the patient.

Admit Source offers these values:

Discharge Disposition offers these values:

Diet Preference offers these values:

Note: Your deployment can set a default discharge disposition. MANSOQ pre-fills that value.

Status

The status shows where the encounter is in its life cycle.

Status Description
Planned The team plans the encounter for a future date.
In Progress The team gives care to the patient now.
On Hold The team pauses the encounter.
Discharged The facility discharges the patient.
Completed The care in this encounter ends.
Cancelled The team cancels the encounter before the care starts.
Discontinued The team stops the encounter before the care ends.
Entered in error A user creates the encounter by mistake.
Unknown The status of the encounter is not known.

MANSOQ applies no rules about the order of the statuses. While the encounter stays open, you can move it from any status to any other status.

Four statuses lock the encounter: Completed, Cancelled, Discontinued and Entered in error. After the encounter reaches one of these statuses, nobody can edit it. Nobody can record new clinical data on it.

Discharged does not lock the encounter. A discharged encounter stays open for edits. The care team can still change the location, the care team, the departments and the tags. To close a discharged encounter, someone must mark it as complete. See Complete an Encounter.

Note: Your deployment sets how long after its last change someone can restart a completed encounter. The default is zero hours, which stops all restarts.

Where to find Encounters

The facility sidebar holds a Patients group. The group contains Search Patients, one list for each allowed encounter type, and Locations. The group also contains All Encounters when your deployment allows more than one encounter type.

Note: Your deployment sets the default date filter on the encounter lists.

The encounter page holds these tabs: Overview, Plots, Observations, Medicines, Responses, Service Requests, Diagnostic Reports, Files, Notes, Devices and Consents. Every tab except Overview, Devices and Consents needs permission to read clinical data.

The encounter page also holds an Encounter Actions command palette. Press Shift+E to open it.

The Overview tab carries a side panel with these actions:

The Overview tab also carries a button. The button reads Mark for discharge or Mark as Completed.

A left rail lets you move between the encounters of the patient. The rail filters the encounters by status, department, care team, date and tags.

Permissions

Your role controls what you can do with an encounter. Administrators, Doctors, Nurses and Facility Administrators hold these permissions.

Permission What it allows
Can Create encounter Create an encounter.
Can Read encounter Open an encounter.
Can list encounters See the encounter lists.
Update Encounter non clinical Change the details of the encounter. Manage its departments, care team, location, tags, completion and restart.
Can Read encounter related clinical data Open the clinical tabs.
Update Encounter related clinical data Record clinical data.
Can submit questionnaire about patient encounters Answer questionnaires about the encounter. Staff also hold this permission.

You can also reach an encounter through the department that owns the current bed of the patient. The departments of the encounter are not the only route.

Related

Source evidence

References are pinned to the private MANSOQ source repository. Repository access is required to open these links.