The appointment management consumer application will make use of individual API calls described in “API Use Cases” to perform business processes.
Consumer session - booking an appointment
The sequence diagram below to illustrates for clarity what individual API calls are required by a consumer in order to book an appointment at GP practice in the simplest case.
The diagram below describes interactions of the consumer with the provider FHIR endpoint at the practice, and does not include details of the pre-requisite interactions with Spine services. Please refer to Spine Integration Illustrated for details of an end-to-end appointment booking scenario with Spine service interactions included.
| Step | Description |
|---|---|
| 1a | Consumer makes an API call to Search for free slots at the practice in the specified timeframe. |
| 1b | Provider responds with details of what slots are available for booking. Should no applicable slots be returned, the consumer may make repeated calls to Search for free slots with amended date ranges. |
| 2a | Consumer then makes API call to Find a patient providing the patient’s NHS Number. |
| 2b | Provider finds patient record and returns the logical identifier of the patient record at this practice in their system. See Patient record not present for an illustration of the steps required in this case. |
| 3a | Consumer calls Book an appointment indicating the slots selected in the UI together with the logical ID of the patient. |
| 3b | Provider responds with details of the booked appointment as confirmation of success. |
Consumer session - booking an appointment at a collection of federating practices
Where a consumer user interface provides a view of available bookings across a collection of federating practices, some steps are repeated for each practice, as shown below:
| Step | Description |
|---|---|
| Repeat step 1 for each federated practice to gain a view of slot availability across the federation | |
| 1a | Consumer makes an API call to Search for free slots at the practice in the specified timeframe. |
| 1b | Provider responds with details of what slots are available for booking. Should no applicable slots be returned, the consumer may make repeated calls to Search for free slots with amended date ranges. |
| 2a | Consumer then makes API call to Find a patient providing the patient’s NHS Number. |
| 2b | Provider finds patient record and returns the logical identifier of the patient record at this practice in their system. See Patient record not present for an illustration of the steps required in this case. |
| 3a | Consumer calls Book an appointment indicating the slots selected in the UI together with the logical ID of the patient. |
| 3b | Provider responds with details of the booked appointment as confirmation of success. |
Consumer session - booking an appointment - no patient record
| Step | Description |
|---|---|
| 1a | Consumer makes an API call to Search for free slots at the practice in the specified timeframe. |
| 1b | Provider responds with details of what slots are available for booking. Should no applicable slots be returned, the consumer may make repeated calls to Search for free slots with amended date ranges. |
| 2a | Consumer then makes API call to Find a patient providing the patient’s NHS Number. |
| 2b | Provider returns zero patient records indicating that the patient with the specified NHS Number does not have a patient record at the practice. |
| 3a | Consumer makes API call to Register a patient providing sufficient details to make a temporary registration at the practice. |
| 3b | Provider returns the details of the temporarily registered patient, including the logical ID of the new patient record at the practice system, as confirmation of success. |
| 4a | Consumer calls Book an appointment indicating the slots selected in the UI together with the logical ID of the newly created patient record at the practice. |
| 4b | Provider responds with details of the booked appointment as confirmation of success. |
