In both the Problem and Goal segments a field named "Episode of Care" has been included. This field is intended accommodate an entity defined by consensus business rules that defines an episode of care.
We have issued a warning about both the Problem and Goal segments that reflects our belief that individual businesses/applications must be cognizant of and be able to handle data integrity issues that may arise from the fact that problem lists and goals lists may not have a single owner of record. Although it is not the committees belief that the resolution of such problems lies within the HL7 domain, this concern will be submitted to the Control/Query group for further debate.
The Patient Care Technical Committee will be addressing the following issues in the future:
1. The relationship between one problem and another problem.
2. The relationships between problems, goals and related patient care events.