Care Pathways

This page documents a new feature in SanteDB 3.0

The SanteEMR plugin allows for the specification of care pathways in SanteDB. A care pathway is a logical grouping of CDSS rules which implement a particular, logical set of clinical protocols to care for a particular condition. Example of how this could be used are:

• Enrolling all children under 60 months in a healthy baby care pathway (vaccinations, weights, growth monitoring, etc.)

• Enrolling all women with a confirmed, active pregnancy status into an ANC care pathways (vaccinations, routine monitoring, etc.)

Care pathways are administered in the SanteEMR / Care Paths screen on the administrative user interface. When visiting the care pathway page, adminsitrators are presented with a list of all registered care pathways

Creating/Editing a Care Pathway

A care pathway may be created and edited using the Create or Edit button on the pathway.

A care pathway is defined with the following properties.

Field	Description
Mnemonic	The unique name for the care pathway, for example org.myproject.pathway
Description	A short human readable name for the care pathway
Enrollment	Specifies how patients are enrolled into the care pathway. When automatic is selected, and patient registered or updated to match the eligibility criteria - a new care plan with the care pathway will be created. When manual is selected, clinicians must manually enroll patients into the care pathway.
Eligibility Criteria	Identifies the criteria which a patient must possess to be enrolled into the care pathway.
Encounter Template	Indicates the type of encounter that is to be used when new visits in this care pathway are computed.

Adding CDSS to a Care Pathway

CDSS protocols are loosely linked to their care pathway. To add a new rule or protocol to the care pathway, an administrator must first create or change the relevant CDSS library (see: Edit CDSS Library) and place the care pathway into the scope of the protocol. For example, if the care pathway mnemonic is org.example.anc any protocols which apply to this care pathway should be tagged as:

define protocol "ANC Tetanus / Diptheria Vaccination" 
    having scope <org.example.anc>

This indicates that the protocol is to be included and executed whenever a patient is enrolled or appears for an ANC visit.