Resource type: slot

Description

A slot of time on a schedule that may be available for booking appointments.

Elements

PathShortDefinitionComments
A slot of time on a schedule that may be available for booking appointmentsA slot of time on a schedule that may be available for booking appointments.
identifierExternal Ids for this itemExternal Ids for this item.
serviceCategoryA broad categorization of the service that is to be performed during this appointmentA broad categorization of the service that is to be performed during this appointment.
serviceTypeThe type of appointments that can be booked into this slot (ideally this would be an identifiable service - which is at a location, rather than the location itself). If provided then this overrides the value provided on the availability resourceThe type of appointments that can be booked into this slot (ideally this would be an identifiable service - which is at a location, rather than the location itself). If provided then this overrides the value provided on the availability resource.
specialtyThe specialty of a practitioner that would be required to perform the service requested in this appointmentThe specialty of a practitioner that would be required to perform the service requested in this appointment.
appointmentTypeThe style of appointment or patient that may be booked in the slot (not service type)The style of appointment or patient that may be booked in the slot (not service type).
scheduleThe schedule resource that this slot defines an interval of status informationThe schedule resource that this slot defines an interval of status information.
statusbusy | free | busy-unavailable | busy-tentative | entered-in-errorbusy | free | busy-unavailable | busy-tentative | entered-in-error.
startDate/Time that the slot is to beginDate/Time that the slot is to begin.
endDate/Time that the slot is to concludeDate/Time that the slot is to conclude.
overbookedThis slot has already been overbooked, appointments are unlikely to be accepted for this timeThis slot has already been overbooked, appointments are unlikely to be accepted for this time.
commentComments on the slot to describe any extended information. Such as custom constraints on the slotComments on the slot to describe any extended information. Such as custom constraints on the slot.

Scope and Usage

Slot resources are used to provide time-slots that can be booked using an appointment. They do not provide any information about appointments that are available, just the time, and optionally what the time can be used for. These are effectively spaces of free/busy time.
Slots can also be marked as busy without having appointments associated.

A slot can have more than one appointment allocated to it. A scheduling system may permit multiple allocations up to a specific number of places. An example of this type of usage could be where the slot is being used for a group service that permits 5 participants at the same time.

A slot can be marked as over-booked indicating that there are too many appointments allocated to it.

In some situations a service may have a specific set of slots reserved for specific uses, such as "walk-ins" or a specific organization has a "standing booking" for Thursday mornings. These should be represented using the appointmentType field with a specified and agreed value.
Security Permissions or specific business rules on the system could enforce that only eligible appointments are allocated to them.

If a service had a weekly schedule created that permitted eight 1 hour appointments each day of a working week (Monday - Friday), this would be constructed by a single Schedule resource with the dates for the start and end of the week set, and then 40 (5x8) Slot resources associated with it.
As appointments fill up the schedule, these slots would individually be marked as busy as the appointments are filled into the slots.
The slots in a schedule do not need to be the same size, and can be different for different days of the week.

Slot instances do not have any recurrence information included. If recurring information is desired, this will be managed outside these resources, or included as extensions.

Note that booking an appointment does not necessarily require that slot resources be identified. When attempting to book an appointment, if the requestor knows ahead of time which schedulable resources are required, then identifying individual slots from the resources' schedules prior to creating the appointment is appropriate. However, in some medical scheduling scenarios, determining which resources are required for an appointment is very complex, and options other than using schedule+slot may be a better solution.

Notes:

Search Parameters

appointment-typeThe style of appointment or patient that may be booked in the slot (not service type)Slot.appointmentType
identifierA Slot IdentifierSlot.identifier
scheduleThe Schedule Resource that we are seeking a slot withinSlot.schedule
service-categoryA broad categorization of the service that is to be performed during this appointmentSlot.serviceCategory
service-typeThe type of appointments that can be booked into the slotSlot.serviceType
specialtyThe specialty of a practitioner that would be required to perform the service requested in this appointmentSlot.specialty
startAppointment date/time.Slot.start
statusThe free/busy status of the appointmentSlot.status

Extension Definitions

These are extension definitions for this resource defined by the spec