Patients and Flowitems - using medical records to control patient flow

One of the most common clinical practices is using the patient's medical record to control his/her movement in the clinic. This T&T and the accompanying models, address and demonstrate how the modeler can use the Patient Track in conjunction with Flowitems to make sure a patient is routed to an exam/treatment room selected upon the patient's arrival.


First a medical record is created when a patient passes through Triage. Then, while the patient relaxes in the waiting room, the medical record is deposited in a box mounted on the door of one of several different exam/treatment rooms, after which the physician using that particular exam/treatment room, takes the medical record to the waiting room and escorts the patient back to that room for care. A variation on the theme where a specific exam room is assigned to the patient in advance of their appointment is also addressed. In this case, a patient label is used to insure that each patient is taken to a specific exam/treatment room and sees a specific physician.