Rethinking IP and OP Number

[rithviknishad]

Rethinking IP and OP Number

[aparnacoronasafe]

@rithviknishad the ideal thing to do is to have 3 numbers captured for every patient/encounter.

MRD (Medicine records department) No. /Patient ID: This is 1 unique ID for a patient per facility. Every new facility the patient goes to, a new unique ID within the facility will be issued to the patient.

IP No.: everytime the patient gets admitted, a unique IP number for the facility will be assigned to that encounter of the patient.

OP No.: every time the patient gets an OP consultation at a hospital, a unique OP number for the facility will given to the patient for that encounter. This OP number will be the same for any immediate follow ups recommended, usually within 2 weeks.

You can think of every hospital maintaining 3 separate registers-

1. patient registry (MRD No.)
2. IP registry and
3. OP Registry

Current need:

Since CARE is adopted only by smaller hospitals, they may have a more simplified approach to patient registries. What we gather is that hospitals may not be keeping separate OP registers but only patient registry (MRD No.) and IP registry. Hence currently, we can retain the existing fields in CARE for IP and OP numbers and allow users to type in the MRD No. within the OP field if the hospital does not have a separate OP Numbering system.