User Visits
The Visits module was created to enable managing visits in OpenMRS.
It can be used to schedule different types of visits, save visit data in the system and manage saved visits.
The Visits module allows users to manage visits scheduled. A doctor can use visits to schedule appointments for a specific date, time and type. Managing visits is also connected with a visit note feature that helps doctors keep track of a patient's medical data collected during a visit in the facility.
The access to the Visits module is available from the patient’s dashboard:
- Dedicated widget
- General actions panel
The user is redirected to the "Manage Visits" page, where a table with scheduled visits is available. This table provides brief information about visits in the past and in the future, including:
- Planned Date
- Actual Date
- Time
- Location
- Type
- Status
The "Schedule Visit” button is available as well. It redirects to the page allowing to schedule a new visit.
As mentioned, the “Schedule Visit” button redirects to the "Schedule Visit" page.
The "Planned date" field consists of a date picker (allowing to choose the past date and the future as well). The rest of the fields to set: "Visit time", "Visit location" and "Visit type" are dropdown type.
Visit date and visit type are required to successfully schedule a visit.
The “Save” button causes scheduling a visit and the “Cancel” button redirects back to the "Manage Visit" page without scheduling any visit.
The "Planned date" includes the date picker allowing to choose the date for the visit the user wants to schedule. It is allowed to schedule a visit in the past.
The "Visit time" specifies the time of the day for a scheduled visit. The user can choose one of the available visit times from the dropdown list.
The list of available visit times is customizable. See the "Visit times" documentation for further information.
This field is optional.
Default available visit times:
The "Visit location" specifies the place for the scheduled visits. The user can choose one of the available visit locations from the dropdown.
The locations list is customizable and includes locations with a visit tag. See the "Visit locations" documentation for further information.
This field is optional.
Exemplary locations:
A visit can have one of three visit types: follow-up, sputum collection, medicine refill. See the "Visit notes" documentation for further information about the visit types presented below.
Visit types can be added, edited and removed. See the "Visit types" documentation for further information.
To edit a scheduled visit, the user needs to click on the "pen" icon in the row of a chosen visit. After clicking on the icon, the user is redirected to the "Edit Visit" page.
Elements available on this page are similar to those in the scheduling visit page. Additional element is the dropdown with visit status. Visit date, visit type and visit status are required.
The “Save” button causes saving provided changes and “Cancel” button redirects back to the Managing Visits page without changes.
A visit can have one of three statuses: SCHEDULED, OCCURRED and MISSED. After scheduling a visit it is initially set to SCHEDULED.
The visit status can be changed manually into any other status.
The status is changed automatically to:
- OCCURRED: when a visit note is being entered. See the "Visit notes" documentation for further information.
- MISSED: when a scheduled visit has not been marked as OCCURRED one day after the scheduled date of the visit. The number of days that must pass before the status changes automatically can be customized by the application administrator. Default is 1 day.
Additional statuses can be added, changed and deleted by the application administrator. See the "Visit statuses" documentation for further information.
To delete a scheduled visit you need to click the “x” icon in the row of the visit you want to remove.
After clicking the “x” icon, the confirmation dialog with “NO” and “YES” buttons is displayed.
The "Visit note" can be added after clicking the "stethoscope" icon in a row of a chosen visit on the "Manage Visits" page. Visit note form depends on the selected visit type. There are 3 visit types available by default and each of them has a matching visit note template.
The "Follow-up" visit note is divided into three sections: "Diagnosis", "Capture vitals" and "Additional information". Above these mentioned sections, the actual date of visit can be set by choosing it from the date picker.
The actual visit date is validated to today and the future dates. This validation can be turned off by the admin per implementation. See the "Actual date validation" documentation for further information.
To add a diagnosis, you need to type first characters of the diagnosis name into the Diagnoses input field.
The dropdown with matching diseases will display, but non-coded disease can be provided as well. This possibility can be turned off per implementation. See the "Enabling non-coded diagnoses" documentation for further information.
First chosen diagnosis will be set as the "Primary diagnosis". When adding a second diagnose, it is automatically being saved as "Secondary diagnosis". In both sections, more than one diagnosis can be added. For every diagnosis “Primary” and “Confirmed” checkboxes can be checked.
Diagnoses are displayed on the diagnoses widget on the patient's dashboard. If the same diagnosis is confirmed in more than one visit note, the diagnosis is not show twice on the widget.
In capture vitals the user can provide vital data of the patient captured during visit:
- Height – validated to numbers not higher than 272
- Weight – validated to numbers not higher than 250
- Temperature – validated to numbers not higher than 43
- Pulse – validated to numbers not higher than 230
- Respiratory Rate – validated to numbers not higher than 999
- Blood Pressure – validated to numbers not higher than 250/150
- Blood Oxygen Saturation – validated to numbers not higher than 100
Calculated BMI is displayed based on the provided data.
After filling and saving the "Capture Vitals" form, the collected results display in the Patient Dashboard in the "Latest observation" widget.
The "Additional information" section is divided.
Visit outcome consists of 3 sections with checkboxes, as presented on the screenshot, where at least one of the checkboxes needs to be checked to successfully save a visit note.
In the "Next steps" section, a list of checkboxes to be marked depending on the next action taken for the patient is available. At least one of them needs to be checked. The "Clinical note" is a field for additional clinical text input.
The "Medicine Refill Visit Note" includes the "Actual visit date" field and the "Medication" section with fields "Medication provided to the Patient" and "Amount of medication provided".
The "Actual visit date" is validated to today and the future dates. This validation can be turned off by the admin per implementation. See the "Actual date validation" documentation for further information.
The "Medication provided to the patient" is a dropdown list where you can choose the medication prescribed to the patient. The list of the medication is customizable. See the "Medication list" documentation for further information.
In the "Amount of medication provided", you can type the amount of medicine prescribed.
The "Sputum collection visit note" includes the "Actual visit date" field and the "Sputum collection date" field. The "Actual Visit Date" field is a date picker that should hold the date when the visit took place. The "Sputum Collection Date" field is a date picker where the collection date is supposed to be set.
The "Actual visit date" is validated to today and the future dates. This validation can be turned off by the admin per implementation. See the "Actual date validation" documentation for further information.
Sputum collection date picker is not validated – past dates can be chosen as well.
To access the "Visit Overview" page, you need to click the "Visit Overview” button on the homepage.
On the "Visit Overview" page you can see a table with columns:
- Patient ID: OpenMRS ID generated for patients
- Name: Name of the patient (it redirects to the "Manage Visits" page for this patient)
- Planned Date: Planned date for the visit
- Actual Date: Date when the visit actually occurred (it’s pulled out from visit note)
- Time: The time of the visit
- Type: The type of the visit
- Status: The status of the visit
It is filled in with the data of visits for all the patients from the current location. When changing the location in the dropdown at the top bar, the content of the table changes to reflect the patients of the choosen location.
The "Visit Overview" page also contains the search field. It allows searching visits by patient name and ID.
