Support for DME Supplies (Design Page)

Owned by Burke Mamlin
Oct 05, 2015
1 min read

Background

Providers commonly need to prescribe durable medical equipment (DME) or supplies to patients, including syringes, gauze, a cane, etc. OpenMRS should have a way of defining these inventory items and making them available as orderable concepts. Much like for drugs, there are three levels of granularity to consider:

GranularityUse CaseDrug ExampleSupply (DME) Example
SearchingWhat providers see when searchingASPIRINWALKER
SelectingOnce the top level item is selected, what secondary choices

ASPIRIN 81 MG TAB

ASPIRIN 325 MG TAB

WALKER, TWO WHEEL

WALKER, FOUR LEG

Out of scope for EMR

Further granularity that may be needed for inventory,
but are more appropriately managed in another system.

BOTTLE OF #100 ASPIRIN 325 MG TAB MADE BY ACME

BOX OF INDIVIDUAL SEALED PACKETS OF ASPIRIN 325 MG TAB

ADJUSTABLE FOUR LEG WALKER WITH FOAM HAND GRIPS

PLASTIC FOUR LEG WALKER WITH METAL HANDLES

Design ideas

  • Add a "Supply" concept class
  • Create a supply or dme table to contain the list of specific options for any given concepts (i.e., the choices a provider would see once the concept is selected).
  • Add the ability to order supplies
    • Create a SupplyOrder object and corresponding order_supply table to record orders for supplies.

Attributes to consider for supply table:

  • Name
  • Description
  • Requires indication (boolean)
  • Requires length of need (boolean)
  • ...TBD...

Attributes to consider for order_supply table:

  • Indication
  • Length of need (this is commonly required for DME like braces, canes, etc.)
  • ...TBD...