Stream: implementers
Topic: Active on Patient?
Bob Barnard (Sep 30 2016 at 12:33):
the Active boolean on Patient is given a usage of removing a patient that is added in error. How is the different from the intention of a Delete? Once deleted the Patient still exists for deep searches if needed (i.e. really a soft delete), so why add Active to Patient but not all resources?
Jason Walonoski (Sep 30 2016 at 13:30):
Speculating this has to do with patient matching and record merging work flow.... Inactive patients might have linked resources that can be merged with a "gold standard" record... once everything is merged, all the inactive patient records can be deleted. Just a guess.
John Moehrke (Sep 30 2016 at 14:44):
both of those models are legitimate. The core standard supports many models, profiles mght constrain to a specific model, implementations really need to choose one model. So this the common situation that a standard needs to support a set of reasonable policies, where profiles constrain that to a specific set of use-case needs.
Bob Barnard (Sep 30 2016 at 15:19):
Sure, but why Patient? Organization also has active, but many resources don't. There must be some logic around the intended use of that field that's different than DELETE which is supported by all.
Grahame Grieve (Sep 30 2016 at 18:24):
different organizations have different ways of managing record problems. HL7 cannot enforce a common model in this regard. (We've tried before)
Grahame Grieve (Sep 30 2016 at 18:25):
some institutions delete records and merge everything else, while other institutions mark the record as no longer in use, but keep it around for reference
Bob Barnard (Sep 30 2016 at 18:27):
Ok, thanks all. Sounds like there is no reason why Active is on some resources and not on others. I'll take that message back to the group as well as the advice that we are free to use Active independent of DELETE depending on our own intents and use cases.
Grahame Grieve (Sep 30 2016 at 18:33):
The rules is that every resource has to clearly document how the situation is handled when a record is created in error.
Grahame Grieve (Sep 30 2016 at 18:34):
that's not done by all resources yet. but we're getting there. The committees that manage the resource content choose how this is handled based on the overall use cases tehy are aware of
Grahame Grieve (Sep 30 2016 at 18:35):
Al records in the patient compartment should have a way of marking the resource is 'in-error' without simply deleting them, though this is still work in progress getting agreement to this across the board
Bob Barnard (Sep 30 2016 at 18:41):
Thanks, understood.
Last updated: Apr 12 2022 at 19:14 UTC
