Point of Care Location
The encounter point of care location identifies the department(s) where a patient encounter occurred. When UNC Health Care System moved to Epic, most of the existing units and clinics changed names. Additionally, many new departments were added (and continue to be added) post-Epic. As departments could not be mapped between the systems, you will see a designation of “(Epic)” or “(Legacy)” after each clinic name in i2b2 corresponding to the source of the data. If you are interested in point of care location both prior to and after the Epic Go Live, you will want to include both the legacy and Epic versions of a department’s name, if both exist.
Point of care locations are initially grouped by the parent revenue location they exist under (i.e. UNC Hospitals, Rex Hospitals) and then further grouped by their specialty.
Within i2b2, the entire location history for a patient encounter is available. For example, if an inpatient:
- Entered the Emergency Department at UNC Medical Center
- Transferred to the MICU
- Transferred and Discharged from 3 Anderson
All three locations (ED, MICU, and 3 AD) are associated with that patient’s encounter in i2b2. In that case, searching on any one (or all) of those locations would pull back the same encounter.
Point of Care Location is different from Hospital Service as the entire point of care history is available for searching.
As of May 2020 the entire Hospital Service history for an inpatient stay is also available, however is still queried independently of the departments and clinics.