Tuesday, September 08, 2009

"Non-ambulatory status" in HL7 Version 2

3.4.3.15 PV1-15 Ambulatory Status (IS) 00145

Definition: This field indicates any permanent or transient handicapped conditions.

Examples:

A0 No functional limitations
A1 Ambulates with assistive device
A2 Wheelchair/stretcher bound
A3 Comatose; non-responsive
A4 Disoriented
A5 Vision impaired
A6 Hearing impaired
A7 Speech impaired
A8 Non-English speaking
A9 Functional level unknown

B1 Oxygen therapy
B2 Special equipment (tubes, IVs, catheters)
B3 Amputee
B4 Mastectomy
B5 Paraplegic
B6 Pregnant

2 comments:

Spero melior said...

Some might also object to B6.

It's also interesting that stuff that does not pertain to "ambulatory status" at all is here, such as hearing impaired (A6) and speech impaired (A7).

It's an all-too-common problem in health care IT, that when we don't have a field to record a particular thing, we overload an existing field.

This list demonstrates that problem perfectly.

Also, how do you record a hearing-impaired, pregnant woman who does not speak English? Perhaps it's a "repeating' field in HL7 v2.x, so you can record multiple values. But vendors are notoriously fickle when it comes to proper support for "repeating" fields. It's that "exactly one place to put it" problem, again.

Oscar said...

How did it come to be that "Non-English speaking" is considered a handicapped condition?