"Simple tasks" for some task planning?

Specifications Task Planning/GDL
1

Hi!
I once heard that Better had an implemetation of something I believe was called “Simple Tasks” or “Simple task engine”. If I remember correctly it was a way of setting up a number of (planned/anticipated) ACTION instances in advance, that then later one by one could be comitted to the EHR when they actually happen. Does anybody have more information about this and how it was/is used? Or info about similar approaches?

(Thinking of ways to simplify modeling of planned and then executed chemotherapy regimens/treatment plans.)

2

I’m curious what’s the reasoning behind waiting to commit them. If, say, a procedure has been planned for a specific point in time (or in other words, been “scheduled”), ACTION.procedure should be persisted with the “scheduled” state and the “Scheduled date/time” element set to the point in time it’s been scheduled to be carried out?

3

I think it could be for example when you want to schedule a series of potential planned events including some event specific settings (e.g. execution of a chemotherapy regimen) connected to a single ACTIVITY (in an INSTRUCTION) instead fo creating and comitting a whole bunch of ACTIVITY instances with different scheduling and an ACTION for each of them.

Let’s see of we can ping somebody form Better into this: @borut.fabjan, @Bostjan_Lah

4

Depending on which activities we’re talking about, there’s usually more than one step to carrying out an activity (talking about a healthcare activity, not the ACTIVITY class). Maybe there’s a part of the use case I don’t get, but I’m struggling to understand how creating a set of uncommitted ACTIONs (in the “completed” state?) is better than committing the same ACTIONs in the “planned” or “scheduled” state? IMO this is where the state machine really shines, enabling each required step to be recorded either in separate compositions or as new versions of the same composition.

5

I believe it was intended for the use cases like “give the patient dose X of Y every other day for 30 days” if

  • you want to prepare 15 ACTIONS in mostly active state (and the final one in completed state) with preliminary dates (that may change e.g. if you need to pause) and the planned dose (that may change before committing the ACTION if not full dose could be given), connected one and the same ACTIVITY…
  • …instead of creating 15 ACTIVITIES in an INSTRUCTION with corresponding 15 ACTION instances in planned or scheduled state.

I believe openEHR “Task planning” has similar, but more advanced/powerful, possibilities.

6

Hi,

Indeed we have build simple tasks for this very purpose. It is a really light-weight option for recording some future scheduled work, but not yet having it committed into patients EHR. Having this stored outside of EHR also allows for things like tasks not related to patients.

It is successfully used in the Better Meds and planned for wider use through through Better Studio. It would fit very nicely to the Chemotherapy treatement/regimen plans.

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