Concepts/Location: Difference between revisions

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Latest revision as of 22:44, 11 August 2026

conceptfacilityCARE 3.0+

A location in Care is a physical place inside a facility. A location can be a building, a ward, a room, or a bed. Locations sit inside one another and form a hierarchy. For example, a building contains wards, a ward contains rooms, and a room contains beds.

Key Attributes

Components	What it captures
Name	The name of the location. You must enter a name.
Description	A description of the location. This is optional.
Location Form	The type of place that the location represents. You must choose a Location Form when you create the location. You cannot change it later.
Status	The state of the location. You must choose a status.
Operational Status	The current use of the location. You must choose an operational status.
Parent location	The location that this location sits under in the hierarchy. You set the parent location when you create the location.
Order among siblings	The position of the location among the locations under the same parent location.
Organizations	The facility departments that you link to the location.
Availability	Whether the location is Available or Reserved.
Current Encounter	The encounter of the patient who uses this location now.

Location Form

The Location Form tells Care what type of place the location is. Choose one of these forms:

Site
Building
Wing
Ward
Level
Corridor
Room
Bed
Vehicle
House
Cabinet
Road
Area
Jurisdiction
Virtual

Parent location and hierarchy

A location with no parent location is a top-level location for the facility. Only some Location Forms can hold child locations. A Ward can hold child locations. A Bed cannot hold child locations.

📝 Note

You must choose a parent location before you create a Bed.

📝 Note

Your deployment sets the limit for the depth of the hierarchy. Your deployment also sets the limit for the total number of locations in one facility.

You can change the order of the locations under the same parent location. See Reorder locations.

Organizations

Organizations are the facility departments that you link to the location. The linked departments control which members can access the location. See Manage a location's organizations.

Availability

Care sets the availability of the location. The location is Reserved when a patient is assigned to it. In all other cases the location is Available. You cannot set the availability yourself.

Status

Status	Description
Active	The facility uses the location.
Inactive	The facility does not use the location.
Unknown	The state of the location is not known.

Operational Status

Operational Status	Description
Closed	The location is closed for use.
Housekeeping	Housekeeping staff prepare the location.
Occupied	A patient uses the location.
Unoccupied	No patient uses the location.
Isolated	The location is under isolation.
Contaminated	The location is contaminated.

Permissions

Permission	What it allows
Can List Facility Locations	View locations.
Can Create/Update Facility Locations	Create, edit, reorder, and delete locations.

📝 Note

To manage the organizations of a location, you also need permission to manage the facility department that you link or unlink.

Pages that link here:

Concept: Concepts/Encounter
Reference: References/Location

@@ Line 3: / Line 3: @@
 |domain=facility
 |title=Location
+|summary=A physical place inside a facility — a building, a ward, a room, or a bed. Locations sit inside one another and form a hierarchy.
 |order=4
 |introduced=3.0
@@ Line 9: / Line 10: @@
 }}
-A '''location''' is a physical place inside a facility where care happens or resources sit — a building, a wing, a ward, a room, or a single bed. Locations form a nested tree that mirrors the real geography of your facility, so the platform can answer questions like &quot;which bed is this patient in?&quot; and &quot;who is allowed into this ward?&quot;.
+A '''[https://build.fhir.org/location.html location]''' in Care is a physical place inside a facility. A location can be a building, a ward, a room, or a bed. Locations sit inside one another and form a hierarchy. For example, a building contains wards, a ward contains rooms, and a room contains beds.
-== What it represents ==
+== Key Attributes ==
+{| class="wikitable"
-In Care's FHIR-aligned model, a location maps to the '''Location''' resource. Each location records:
+|-
+! Components !! What it captures
+|-
+| Name || The name of the location. You must enter a name.
+|-
+| Description || A description of the location. This is optional.
+|-
+| Location Form || The type of place that the location represents. You must choose a Location Form when you create the location. You cannot change it later.
+|-
+| Status || The state of the location. You must choose a status.
+|-
+| Operational Status || The current use of the location. You must choose an operational status.
+|-
+| Parent location || The location that this location sits under in the hierarchy. You set the parent location when you create the location.
+|-
+| Order among siblings || The position of the location among the locations under the same parent location.
+|-
+| Organizations || The facility departments that you link to the location.
+|-
+| Availability || Whether the location is Available or Reserved.
+|-
+| Current Encounter || The encounter of the patient who uses this location now.
+|}
+=== Location Form ===
-* '''What kind of place it is''' — a name, a description, and a physical form such as ward, room, or bed
-* '''Where it sits in the tree''' — its parent and children, since every place can nest inside a larger one and hold smaller ones, with no fixed limit on depth
-* '''Whether it is usable''' — and, for beds and rooms, a finer operational state (occupied, unoccupied, housekeeping, contaminated, isolated, closed)
-* '''Who is in it''' — the encounter, if any, currently occupying the place (most meaningful for a bed)
-* '''Who may work there''' — the organizations granted access to this part of the facility
+The Location Form tells Care what type of place the location is. Choose one of these forms:
-A location is a ''place'', not a ''department'' or a ''team''. A ward as a physical space is a location; the unit of staff and responsibility that runs it is an [[Concepts/Organization|organization]]. The two are linked, but they are different primitives — you nest places inside places, and you grant an organization access to a place.
+* Site
-== Classification ==
+* Building
+* Wing
+* Ward
+* Level
+* Corridor
+* Room
+* Bed
+* Vehicle
+* House
+* Cabinet
+* Road
+* Area
+* Jurisdiction
+* Virtual
+=== Parent location and hierarchy ===
-Two attributes describe what a location ''is'', and they are fixed when it is created.
+A location with no parent location is a top-level location for the facility. Only some Location Forms can hold child locations. A Ward can hold child locations. A Bed cannot hold child locations.
-* '''Mode''' separates a ''kind'' of place from a concrete ''instance'' of one. A <code>kind</code> is a class of location — &quot;a ward&quot;, &quot;a building&quot; — and can contain children. An <code>instance</code> is one specific place — &quot;Bed 12&quot;, &quot;Room 4&quot; — and is a leaf: instances cannot have children.
-* '''Form''' is the physical type, drawn from a standard FHIR list: site, building, wing, ward, level, corridor, room, bed, vehicle, house, and more. This is what lets a deployment model the difference between a wing and the beds inside it.
+{{Note|1=You must choose a parent location before you create a Bed.}}
-Beds are not a separate concept in Care — a bed is simply a location whose form is <code>bed</code> and whose mode is <code>instance</code>. The whole facility map, from building down to bed, is one uniform tree.
+{{Note|1=Your deployment sets the limit for the depth of the hierarchy. Your deployment also sets the limit for the total number of locations in one facility.}}
-== Lifecycle ==
+You can change the order of the locations under the same parent location. See [[Flows/Reorder locations|Reorder locations]].
-A location's own status is deliberately simple — it describes whether the place exists and is usable, not whether someone is in it.
+=== Organizations ===
-<syntaxhighlight lang="text">active → inactive
-        (unknown)</syntaxhighlight>
-* '''active''' — the location is live and can be used for encounters and assignments
-* '''inactive''' — retired from routine use but kept for history; it does not disappear
-* '''unknown''' — status has not been determined
+Organizations are the facility departments that you link to the location. The linked departments control which members can access the location. See [[Flows/Manage a location's organizations|Manage a location's organizations]].
-Separately, beds and rooms carry an '''operational status''' that changes far more often: occupied, unoccupied, housekeeping, contaminated, isolated, or closed. This is the day-to-day signal a bed-management board reads, and it is distinct from the location simply being <code>active</code>.
-== How it connects ==
+=== Availability ===
+Care sets the availability of the location. The location is Reserved when a patient is assigned to it. In all other cases the location is Available. You cannot set the availability yourself.
-Locations are the spatial backbone that other primitives attach to.
+== Status ==
-* '''Encounters''' occupy locations over time. When a patient is admitted to a bed, a record captures ''which'' place, ''when'' occupancy began, and ''whether'' it is planned, active, reserved, or completed. From these records the platform derives a location's current encounter and whether it is free or reserved — which is how a bed knows it is taken.
-* '''Organizations''' are granted access to locations. Giving a [[Concepts/Facility Organization|facility organization]] access to a ward lets every user under that organization work in the ward and its descendants, through the role they hold. Access flows ''downward'': grant it at the building and it reaches every room and bed inside.
-* '''Facility''' owns the whole tree. Every location belongs to exactly one [[Concepts/Facility|facility]], and the root of its tree sits at the facility level.
+{| class="wikitable"
-One important consequence of the tree: access and other inherited properties cascade to descendants asynchronously. When you change who can reach a ward, the rooms and beds beneath it settle a moment later rather than instantly — expect it to be eventually consistent, not immediate.
+|-
+! Status !! Description
+|-
+| Active || The facility uses the location.
+|-
+| Inactive || The facility does not use the location.
+|-
+| Unknown || The state of the location is not known.
+|}
-== Permissions ==
+== Operational Status ==
-Access to locations is governed by facility-level permissions. Viewing the location tree is open to most clinical roles; changing the tree or its access grants is reserved for administrators and senior staff.
 {| class="wikitable"
 |-
+! Operational Status !! Description
-! Permission
-! Description
-! System Roles
 |-
+| Closed || The location is closed for use.
-| <code>can_write_facility_locations</code>
-| Create, edit, or delete a location, and add or remove an organization's access to one (add a ward, room, or bed; change status; grant org access)
-| Facility Admin, Admin, Staff
 |-
+| Housekeeping || Housekeeping staff prepare the location.
-| <code>can_create_facility_organization</code>
-| Create a root location (one with no parent) at the top of the facility tree
-| Facility Admin
 |-
+| Occupied || A patient uses the location.
-| <code>can_list_facility_locations</code>
-| View a facility's locations, the location tree, and which organizations have access to a location
-| Admin, Doctor, Facility Admin, Administrator, Admin, Staff, Nurse, Staff, Pharmacist
 |-
+| Unoccupied || No patient uses the location.
-| <code>can_manage_facility_organization</code>
-| Grant or change an organization's access to a location
-| Facility Admin, Administrator
 |-
+| Isolated || The location is under isolation.
-| <code>can_write_encounter</code>
+|-
-| Assign or move an encounter (a patient) to a location, such as placing them in a bed
+| Contaminated || The location is contaminated.
-| Admin, Doctor, Nurse, Facility Admin
 |}
+== Permissions ==
-Roles are granted through facility and organization memberships, and because location access follows the tree, a permission held at a parent location cascades down to everything nested beneath it.
+{| class="wikitable"
+|-
+! Permission !! What it allows
+|-
+| Can List Facility Locations || View locations.
+|-
+| Can Create/Update Facility Locations || Create, edit, reorder, and delete locations.
+|}
+{{Note|1=To manage the organizations of a location, you also need permission to manage the facility department that you link or unlink.}}
-== FHIR reference ==
-Care's location aligns with the FHIR [<nowiki/>https://build.fhir.org/location.html Location] resource, including its mode (<code>kind</code> / <code>instance</code>), physical-form codes, and operational-status codes for beds and rooms.
 {{Navbox facility}}

Latest revision as of 22:44, 11 August 2026

Key Attributes

Location Form

Parent location and hierarchy

Organizations

Availability

Status

Operational Status

Permissions

Related