Reference no: EM133224717

Patient Scenario:

Little Timmy decided one day that he was going to jump off the roof of his mother's car because, well he's a child. As Timmy landed on the ground, he stumbled, hit the concrete pavement of the driveway, and broke his little arm.

As Timmy laid there crying, his mother ran out and immediately knew something was serious. So she rushed Little Timmy with his little broken arm to their local community hospital. Little Timmy had been there before, last year when he decided to jump off the roof of his house and break his ankle.

When Little Timmy and his mother gets to the hospital, they immediately head for the Emergency Room. An admit nurse pulls up Little Timmy's Medical Record Number, since he had been to the hospital a year earlier, and sees that the hospital already has a Medical Record on Little Timmy. Since he already has a Medical Record, there's less paperwork that he needs to do and therefore the admit nurse can admit Little Timmy. When she admits Little Timmy, a unique identifier for this particular visit is attached to Little Timmy's Medical Record Number so that they can document his stay in the hospital until he is discharged with a healing broken arm.

Since Little Timmy had a previous Medical Record, medical staff can go back and look at Timmy's last surgery with a broken bone and make decisions based on the present and past history. Little Timmy's medical record holds that history, with the visit of him coming to the hospital for his broken ankle from last year. This visit last year was also assigned a visit number, and was attached to his medical record number.

By having a visit number attached to each "visit" of the hospital that Timmy has undertaken, they can review past data to see if there are any chronic problems (Timmy likes to jump off of high places), and to assess if additional medical treatment or cautions should be taken.

What is the encounter in this scenario for the current injury?