{"id":"edxl-patient-tracking","slug":"edxl-patient-tracking","title":"EDXL Patient Tracking","description":"When a large incident involves multiple treatment points, ambulances, and receiving facilities, the hardest question quickly becomes \"where is the patient now?\" If patient movement is tracked on paper tags alone, command","category":"modules","tags":["modules","geospatial"],"lastModified":"2026-04-22","source_ref":"content/modules/edxl-patient-tracking.md","url":"/developers/edxl-patient-tracking","htmlPath":"/developers/edxl-patient-tracking","jsonPath":"/api/docs/modules/edxl-patient-tracking","markdownPath":"/api/docs/modules/edxl-patient-tracking?format=markdown","checksum":"3b6712223dc71cdb666173fe3eaf32e24cad337333870464bfc6ade9c8197bc3","headings":[{"id":"overview","text":"Overview","level":2},{"id":"key-features","text":"Key Features","level":2},{"id":"use-cases","text":"Use Cases","level":2},{"id":"integration","text":"Integration","level":2},{"id":"open-standards","text":"Open Standards","level":2}],"markdown":"# EDXL Patient Tracking\n\n## Overview\n\nWhen a large incident involves multiple treatment points, ambulances, and receiving facilities, the hardest question quickly becomes \"where is the patient now?\" If patient movement is tracked on paper tags alone, command teams lose visibility once people begin moving between the scene, vehicles, holding areas, and hospitals.\n\nThe EDXL Patient Tracking module provides a structured patient-tracking layer based on the EDXL-TEP model. It can represent current location, last known location, movement history, triage and severity context, and patient-category information so command and clinical teams have a clearer view of patient flow across the pre-hospital and hospital continuum.\n\n```mermaid\nflowchart TD\n    A[Patient Tagged or Registered] --> B[Current Location Recorded]\n    B --> C[Movement Event Logged]\n    C --> D[Status and Category Updated]\n    D --> E[Receiving Facility or Holding Area]\n    E --> F[Ongoing Patient Flow Picture]\n```\n\n**Last Reviewed:** 2026-04-22\n**Last Updated:** 2026-04-22\n\n## Key Features\n\n- **Current and Last-Known Location**: Record where the patient is now and where they were most recently if the flow is still in motion.\n- **Movement History**: Preserve transfers and other movement events so users can reconstruct the path through the incident.\n- **Triage and Severity Context**: Keep triage category and clinical-severity context tied to the tracking record.\n- **Patient Category Context**: Capture age-group, acuity, admission type, and arrival mode in the same tracking workflow.\n- **Pre-Hospital to Hospital Continuity**: Use one structured tracking model across scene, transport, and receiving-facility phases.\n\n## Use Cases\n\n- **Mass Casualty Patient Flow**: Command teams maintain a live understanding of where red, yellow, and green patients have moved.\n- **Receiving-Facility Coordination**: Hospitals and transport teams keep a shared view of inbound and transferred patients.\n- **Evacuation and Transfer Tracking**: A service tracks movement from scene to holding area to final destination without rebuilding the record each time.\n- **After-Action Review**: Teams reconstruct patient movement to review delays, bottlenecks, or routing decisions after the incident.\n\n## Integration\n\n- **Mass Casualty Triage Workflows**: Triage-tag and casualty workflows can hand into a structured tracking model as the incident develops.\n- **Hospital Availability and Command Views**: Patient flow can be considered alongside capacity and regional command decisions.\n- **ePCR and Handover Workflows**: Once the patient moves into fuller care documentation, the tracking context can still be retained.\n- **Operational Picture Services**: Patient movement can be represented as part of the wider incident picture where the deployment requires it.\n\n## Open Standards\n\n- **OASIS EDXL-TEP 1.0**: the module aligns with the emergency data standard for patient tracking and movement across an incident.\n- **WGS 84 / EPSG:4326**: locations can align with the standard latitude-longitude reference model used across mapping workflows.\n- **ISO 8601**: movement-event and status timestamps use a standard date-time representation.\n- **HL7 FHIR Encounter and Location**: downstream care and location workflows can align with common healthcare resource patterns when needed.\n"}