Schedule

A container for slots of time that may be available for booking appointments.

Schema

Elements

Name	Required	Type	Description
identifier		Identifier[]	External Ids for this item Details External Ids for this item.
active		boolean	Whether this schedule is in active use Details Whether this schedule record is in active use or should not be used (such as was entered in error). This element is labeled as a modifier because it may be used to mark that the resource was created in error.
serviceCategory		CodeableConcept[]	High-level category Details A broad categorization of the service that is to be performed during this appointment.
serviceType		CodeableConcept[]	Specific service Details The specific service that is to be performed during this appointment.
specialty		CodeableConcept[]	Type of specialty needed Details The specialty of a practitioner that would be required to perform the service requested in this appointment.
actor	✓	Reference< Patient | Practitioner | PractitionerRole | RelatedPerson | Device | HealthcareService | Location >[]	Resource(s) that availability information is being provided for Details Slots that reference this schedule resource provide the availability details to these referenced resource(s). The capacity to support multiple referenced resource types should be used in cases where the specific resources themselves cannot be scheduled without the other, and thus only make sense to the system exposing them as a group. Common examples of this are where the combination of a practitioner and a room (Location) are always required by a system.
planningHorizon		Period	Period of time covered by schedule Details The period of time that the slots that reference this Schedule resource cover (even if none exist). These cover the amount of time that an organization's planning horizon; the interval for which they are currently accepting appointments. This does not define a "template" for planning outside these dates.
comment		string	Comments on availability Details Comments on the availability to describe any extended information. Such as custom constraints on the slots that may be associated.

Search Parameters

Name	Type	Description	Expression
active	token	Is the schedule in active use	Schedule.active
actor	reference	The individual(HealthcareService, Practitioner, Location, ...) to find a Schedule for	Schedule.actor
date	date	Search for Schedule resources that have a period that contains this date specified	Schedule.planningHorizon
identifier	token	A Schedule Identifier	Schedule.identifier
service-category	token	High-level category	Schedule.serviceCategory
service-type	token	The type of appointments that can be booked into associated slot(s)	Schedule.serviceType
specialty	token	Type of specialty needed	Schedule.specialty

Inherited Elements

Name	Required	Type	Description
id		string	Logical id of this artifact Details The logical id of the resource, as used in the URL for the resource. Once assigned, this value never changes. The only time that a resource does not have an id is when it is being submitted to the server using a create operation.
meta		Meta	Metadata about the resource Details The metadata about the resource. This is content that is maintained by the infrastructure. Changes to the content might not always be associated with version changes to the resource.
implicitRules		uri	A set of rules under which this content was created Details A reference to a set of rules that were followed when the resource was constructed, and which must be understood when processing the content. Often, this is a reference to an implementation guide that defines the special rules along with other profiles etc. Asserting this rule set restricts the content to be only understood by a limited set of trading partners. This inherently limits the usefulness of the data in the long term. However, the existing health eco-system is highly fractured, and not yet ready to define, collect, and exchange data in a generally computable sense. Wherever possible, implementers and/or specification writers should avoid using this element. Often, when used, the URL is a reference to an implementation guide that defines these special rules as part of it's narrative along with other profiles, value sets, etc.
language		code	Language of the resource content Details The base language in which the resource is written. Language is provided to support indexing and accessibility (typically, services such as text to speech use the language tag). The html language tag in the narrative applies to the narrative. The language tag on the resource may be used to specify the language of other presentations generated from the data in the resource. Not all the content has to be in the base language. The Resource.language should not be assumed to apply to the narrative automatically. If a language is specified, it should it also be specified on the div element in the html (see rules in HTML5 for information about the relationship between xml:lang and the html lang attribute).
text		Narrative	Text summary of the resource, for human interpretation Details A human-readable narrative that contains a summary of the resource and can be used to represent the content of the resource to a human. The narrative need not encode all the structured data, but is required to contain sufficient detail to make it "clinically safe" for a human to just read the narrative. Resource definitions may define what content should be represented in the narrative to ensure clinical safety. Contained resources do not have narrative. Resources that are not contained SHOULD have a narrative. In some cases, a resource may only have text with little or no additional discrete data (as long as all minOccurs=1 elements are satisfied). This may be necessary for data from legacy systems where information is captured as a "text blob" or where text is additionally entered raw or narrated and encoded information is added later.
contained		Resource[]	Contained, inline Resources Details These resources do not have an independent existence apart from the resource that contains them - they cannot be identified independently, and nor can they have their own independent transaction scope. This should never be done when the content can be identified properly, as once identification is lost, it is extremely difficult (and context dependent) to restore it again. Contained resources may have profiles and tags In their meta elements, but SHALL NOT have security labels.
extension		Extension[]	Additional content defined by implementations Details May be used to represent additional information that is not part of the basic definition of the resource. To make the use of extensions safe and manageable, there is a strict set of governance applied to the definition and use of extensions. Though any implementer can define an extension, there is a set of requirements that SHALL be met as part of the definition of the extension. There can be no stigma associated with the use of extensions by any application, project, or standard - regardless of the institution or jurisdiction that uses or defines the extensions. The use of extensions is what allows the FHIR specification to retain a core level of simplicity for everyone.
modifierExtension		Extension[]	Extensions that cannot be ignored Details May be used to represent additional information that is not part of the basic definition of the resource and that modifies the understanding of the element that contains it and/or the understanding of the containing element's descendants. Usually modifier elements provide negation or qualification. To make the use of extensions safe and manageable, there is a strict set of governance applied to the definition and use of extensions. Though any implementer is allowed to define an extension, there is a set of requirements that SHALL be met as part of the definition of the extension. Applications processing a resource are required to check for modifier extensions. Modifier extensions SHALL NOT change the meaning of any elements on Resource or DomainResource (including cannot change the meaning of modifierExtension itself). There can be no stigma associated with the use of extensions by any application, project, or standard - regardless of the institution or jurisdiction that uses or defines the extensions. The use of extensions is what allows the FHIR specification to retain a core level of simplicity for everyone.

Usage

Schedule resources provide a container for time-slots that can be booked using an appointment. It provides the window of time (period) that slots are defined for and what type of appointments can be booked.
The schedule does not provide any information about actual appointments. This separation greatly assists where access to the appointments would not be permitted for security or privacy reasons, while still being able to determine if an appointment might be available.

Note: A schedule is not used for the delivery of medication, the Timing data type should be used for that purpose.

Context

A schedule controls the dates and times available for the performance of a service and/or the use of a resource. One schedule applies to one service or resource, since each service or resource can be reserved independently of the others.
If two or more services, people, locations, or things cannot be reserved independently of one another, they are considered to be one activity or resource.

A schedule consists of slots of time during which the controlled service or resource is potentially available for provision or use. Slots are categorized as open, booked, or blocked. An open slot on a schedule indicates that the service or resource is available for provision or use during that period of time. A booked slot indicates that the service or resource is not available during the time period, because an appointment has been scheduled. A blocked slot indicates that a service or resource is unavailable for reasons other than a scheduled appointment.

The real-world, non-automated analogue of the schedule described above is a standard appointment book. These books are generally organized with rows of time slots, during which a service or resource is available.

A slot is one unit on a schedule. A slot represents the smallest unit of time or quantity that a service or resource may be booked. Depending on the nature of the service or resource, there may be more than one defined slot at a given instant of time. For example, if a service is an open group therapy session with twelve available seats, then there are twelve slots for the given block of time.

Actor - What the schedule applies to

The schedule belongs to a single instance of a service or resource. This is normally a HealthcareService, Practitioner, Location or Device. In the case where a single resource can provide different services, potentially at different location, then the schedulable resource is considered the composite of the actors.
For example, if a practitioner can provide services at multiple locations, they might have one schedule per location, where each schedule includes both the practitioner and location actors. When booking an appointment with multiple schedulable resources, multiple schedules may need to be checked depending on the configuration of the system.

If an appointment has two practitioners, a specific medical device and a room then there could be a schedule for each of these resources that may need to be consulted to ensure that no collisions occur.
If the schedule needed to be consulted, then there would be one created covering the planning horizon for the time of the appointment.

Checking availability - Searching

When checking availability for an appointment, the creator of the appointment should determine which schedules are applicable, then check for available slots within each schedule.

Determining which schedules should be consulted often will involve searching via the properties of the referenced actors, such as the ServiceCategory on the HealthcareService, or the Address on a Location.

The type parameter can be used to filter the type of services that can be booked within the associated slots.

If all slots are busy, the caller may attempt to book an appointment into an already-booked slot, but the server business rules will dictate whether overbooking is allowed, or whether the appointment may be given a higher precedence and allocated the overbooked slot.

Referenced By

• TriggerDefinition
• Slot