Finding a MED Appointment

Procedure

You can find an appointment for a visit in a view of the Outpatient Clinic/Service Facility view type in the clinical work station or in the planning grid.

Note Note

You can also replan appointments for individual services. Note that the appointment search behaves in the same way when used to replan an appointment. When you call the appointment search for an appointment, the system looks for and enters a new time for this appointment.

When you call the appointment search for one or more services, the system creates a new appointment for these services or changes the existing appointment (only possible if all services of the appointment are to be replanned). See Changing Appointments in Planning Grid

Note that when looking for another time for an appointment the system always calls the scheduling-based appointment search. When you call the appointment search for services, the system calls the service-based appointment search dependent on the organizational unit-related parameter N1SRVAPP. See Service-Based Appointment Search

The system will now use the service time of the service to be planned to preset the start time of the appointment search. If you are searching for an appointment for several services with different service times, the system will use the chronologically first time to preset the start time.

These functiona are available to you if you have activated the business function Clinical System Situation-Based Clinical Documentation (ISHMED_SCD).

End of the note.

Select an entry (patient) and choose (Find MED Appointment) or choose the function without selecting an entry.
In the planning grid choose Appointment (Find Appointment).

You access the Find Appointment dialog box.
The following tab pages are available for you to make specifications for the appointment search:
- Standard Search Tab Page
  You select a search variant or enter the desired search criteria.
  
  As standard the system will preset the Treatment OU field with the Performing OU from the work environment in the clinical work station
  
  If you select a search variant the system will preset all fields with the entries in the search variant.
  
  If you have entered search criteria, you can save these as a search variant. Choose Search Variant (Save Search Variant).
  
  Note
  If you are searching for an appointment for an order item of a clinical order, the system presets the search criteria with the information (for example, room) from the appointment template. A prerequisite for this is that an appointment template has been entered for this order item.
  
  If you wish to create an appointment series for follow-up visits, for example, for a physiotherapy with several treatment units, you must enter the corresponding data in the Repeat Treatment Appointment group box.
  
  End of the note.
  
  On the initial screen of the appointment search, group appointments are available as a search option in checkbox form. If you select this indicator, you stipulate that the system should only take into account time slots with free capacities for group appointments when searching for a treatment appointment. The appointment search itself interprets a time area for group appointments as a free time area, as long as the stored maximum number of patients has not been reached, and the overbooking capacity is not yet exceeded.
  
  Treatment appointments are allocated in the visit scheduling function of Outpatient Clinic Management, under consideration of time slots stored for defined planning objects. These time slots can be typed using scheduling types. In the scheduling type you can store the number of patients for a group treatment appointment as the capacity offered for group appointments. You can book a time slot, which refers to such a scheduling type, for the specified number of patient appointments, in visit scheduling.
- Advanced Search Tab Page
  The advanced search enables you to search for available appointments according to the desired treatment unit, such as, for example, the treatment person, treatment room, or for appointments for several treatment units, at once.
  Note
  If you enter several treatment units, for which you wish to search for available appointments, the system creates these appointments when creating the appointments as an appointment series. You can determine time dependencies for these appointments in the following columns:
  Minimum Interval to Next Appointment
  Maximum Interval to Next Appointment
  Unit (for example, minutes, hours, days)
  When you enter a room as the search criteria the system offers an input help with all assignments of this room to organizational units.
  
  End of the note.
  See Maintaining Organizational Unit-to-Building Units Assignments
  
  You select a search variant or enter the desired search criteria.
  
  If you have entered search criteria, you can save these as a search variant. Choose (Save Search Variant).
- Settings Tab Page
  In the settings you define a period of time and then select how the available appointments should be displayed.
  - Choose from Daily Schedule:
    The system will display the available appointments in the time slot of the planning grid in a different color. You can select one of the proposed available appointments or a different time for the patient. See Planning an Appointment
    
    Note that the system can only display the appointment proposal for one appointment in the planning grid. If you perform a search for several appointments, the system displays the result in the time slot list irrespective of the setting.
  - Choose from Time Slot List:
    The system will display the available appointments in the time slot list. You can supplement the appointment entries and save the appointment in this list.
  Concerning the time slot list, you can also determine how the time slot list should be sorted and which time slot alternatives it should contain.
  Note
  In one step, you can plan several appointments for a patient, which
  Should take place in different OUs over a period of one or more days
  Should take place in an OU in a specific sequence
  If you search for several available appointments, the system will always display the determined possible appointments as a time slot list.
  
  End of the note.
Choose Open Time Slots (Find Open Time Slot).
Depending on your settings, you will access the Planning Grid or the Time Slot List.

If you search for appointments for an appointment series, you access the Create Appointment dialog box which behaves in the same way as the time slot list.

See Creating Appointment Series.

Note
Additionally, the Create Clinical Order function is available to you. If you choose this function, the Assign Order Type to Appointment dialog box appears. See Creating Appointments and Clinical Orders

End of the note.
You can plan the appointment for an initial visit.