Introduction to Surgical Blocks

Surgical blocks is the time that is blocked based on the surgeries to be performed and some is left open, or unused block time is released at an agreed-upon time before surgery and allotted to another Surgeon.

Creating a surgical block

For a user to be able to create a new block, user must navigate to Operation Theatre App → OT Scheduling → New Surgical block

To be able to create a surgical appointment a user must first create a block. A block is created against a Surgeon. The mandatory fields while creating a block are:

Surgeon
Location
Start Date-Time
Start End-Time

Surgeons is a list of surgeon names that comes from the OT config

Locations is a list of locations in openMRS that are tagged with operation theatre

Start Date-Time and Start End-Time are fields that you have to enter to be able to block that time for the surgeon against that location.

Validations:

A surgeon cannot have overlapping blocks across OTs
OT can have multiple blocks but only one block is allowed at a point of time in an OT

Sample OT Blocks for Surgeons across three Operating Theatres:

Time	OT1	OT2	OT3
8am	Surgeon1	Surgeon4	Surgeon5
9am	Surgeon2		Surgeon1
10am	Surgeon3

In the above example, Surgeon 1 cannot be blocked for OT2 & OT3 from 8am to 9am, since he/she is blocked for OT1 during that time. But surgeon 1 can be blocked for OT3 from 9am to 11am.

Edit, Cancel or Postpone Blocks

A user can perform the below actions on a block

Edit Block: (All the fields in the block are editable)

A user can edit blocks from calendar view only
To be able to add surgeries in a block that has already been created a user must edit the block
A user needs to click on a block in the calendar view and a pop-up will show block details with Edit button (see screenshot below).
Upon clicking on edit, user will be taken to edit surgical block page where users can see surgeries associated with the block.

Edit/Cancel Surgery Block (on click of block)

Cancel Block:

A user can cancel a block from calendar view
A user can also cancel a block from “edit surgical block” view
A user needs to click on a block in the calendar view and the pop-up will show block details with an Edit or Cancel Block button.
When cancel is selected, there is a pop up that asks if a user wants to cancel the block or postpone it.
User has to click on cancel, select “Cancel block” and enter a reason in order to cancel the block
If a block has a “completed” surgery, a user will not be able to cancel the block
When a block is cancelled, all its surgeries are also cancelled
Once a block is cancelled, the block will not appear in the calendar view

Postpone Block:

A user can postpone a block from calendar view
A user can also postpone a block from “edit surgical block” view
A user needs to select a block in the calendar view and the cancel button on the left bottom will enable
User has to click on cancel, select “Postpone block” and enter a reason in order to postpone the block
If a block has a “completed” surgery, a user will not be able to postpone the block
Once a block is postponed, all its surgeries are also postponed
Once a block is postponed, the block will not appear in the calendar view

Note: In order to reschedule the postponed surgeries of the block, a user will have to create a new surgery for the patient.

Actions that can be performed on blocks:

Block Type	Edit	Postpone	Cancel
Surgical Block (with pending surgeries)	Yes	Yes	Yes
Surgical Block (with completed surgeries)	Yes	No	No

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