Re: [Gnumed-devel] Waitlist sort order

[Jim Busser]

On 2011-07-30, at 11:12 AM, Karsten Hilbert wrote:

> The waiting list explicitely does not enforce a sort order
> over and above list_position. The concept is that it is up
> to the praxis to put patients at the appropriate position in
> the list.

There is a potential for the list to contain lots of items with three factors 
of importance even within any one filterable zone:

        - how long they have been waiting
        - how urgently their need must be attended to
        - what manual order we might set

A possible future factor would be the idea of a deadline or maximum desirable 
waiting time. If it is decided that a certain intervention should be provided 
within 2 days or 2 weeks or two months, this could be factored into filtering 
or presentation. This gets into the realm of clinical decision support.

The question for is whether to use

        manual sort order

to fully determine the order of presentation as a "gestalt" of waiting time and 
urgency. A consequence of this decision is that neither their wait times nor 
their urgency can be used computationally. This brings is a risk that someone 
who has high urgency or a long waiting time could drop below the first screen 
and suffer adverse care.

That is why I might better think sort by

        Urgency DESC
        WIthin urgency:
                By manual DESC but *allowing* NULL
                By time of creation

I am not yet using waiting list very much but am anticipating the above issues. 
If anyone is already using the current GNUmed waiting list or a waiting list 
function in some other EMR it would be interesting to hear any views.

-- Jim