Slot

A slot of time on a schedule that may be available for booking appointments.

Schema

Elements

Name	Required	Type	Description
identifier		Identifier[]	External Ids for this item Details External Ids for this item.
serviceCategory		CodeableConcept[]	A broad categorization of the service that is to be performed during this appointment Details A broad categorization of the service that is to be performed during this appointment.
serviceType		CodeableConcept[]	The type of appointments that can be booked into this slot (ideally this would be an identifiable service - which is at a location, rather than the location itself). If provided then this overrides the value provided on the availability resource Details The type of appointments that can be booked into this slot (ideally this would be an identifiable service - which is at a location, rather than the location itself). If provided then this overrides the value provided on the availability resource.
specialty		CodeableConcept[]	The specialty of a practitioner that would be required to perform the service requested in this appointment Details The specialty of a practitioner that would be required to perform the service requested in this appointment.
appointmentType		CodeableConcept	The style of appointment or patient that may be booked in the slot (not service type) Details The style of appointment or patient that may be booked in the slot (not service type).
schedule	✓	Reference<Schedule>	The schedule resource that this slot defines an interval of status information Details The schedule resource that this slot defines an interval of status information.
status	✓	code	busy | free | busy-unavailable | busy-tentative | entered-in-error Details busy | free | busy-unavailable | busy-tentative | entered-in-error.
start	✓	instant	Date/Time that the slot is to begin Details Date/Time that the slot is to begin.
end	✓	instant	Date/Time that the slot is to conclude Details Date/Time that the slot is to conclude.
overbooked		boolean	This slot has already been overbooked, appointments are unlikely to be accepted for this time Details This slot has already been overbooked, appointments are unlikely to be accepted for this time.
comment		string	Comments on the slot to describe any extended information. Such as custom constraints on the slot Details Comments on the slot to describe any extended information. Such as custom constraints on the slot.

Search Parameters

Name	Type	Description	Expression
appointment-type	token	The style of appointment or patient that may be booked in the slot (not service type)	Slot.appointmentType
identifier	token	A Slot Identifier	Slot.identifier
schedule	reference	The Schedule Resource that we are seeking a slot within	Slot.schedule
service-category	token	A broad categorization of the service that is to be performed during this appointment	Slot.serviceCategory
service-type	token	The type of appointments that can be booked into the slot	Slot.serviceType
specialty	token	The specialty of a practitioner that would be required to perform the service requested in this appointment	Slot.specialty
start	date	Appointment date/time.	Slot.start
status	token	The free/busy status of the appointment	Slot.status
end	date	The end time of the Slot	Slot.end

Inherited Elements

Name	Required	Type	Description
id		string	Logical id of this artifact Details The logical id of the resource, as used in the URL for the resource. Once assigned, this value never changes. The only time that a resource does not have an id is when it is being submitted to the server using a create operation.
meta		Meta	Metadata about the resource Details The metadata about the resource. This is content that is maintained by the infrastructure. Changes to the content might not always be associated with version changes to the resource.
implicitRules		uri	A set of rules under which this content was created Details A reference to a set of rules that were followed when the resource was constructed, and which must be understood when processing the content. Often, this is a reference to an implementation guide that defines the special rules along with other profiles etc. Asserting this rule set restricts the content to be only understood by a limited set of trading partners. This inherently limits the usefulness of the data in the long term. However, the existing health eco-system is highly fractured, and not yet ready to define, collect, and exchange data in a generally computable sense. Wherever possible, implementers and/or specification writers should avoid using this element. Often, when used, the URL is a reference to an implementation guide that defines these special rules as part of it's narrative along with other profiles, value sets, etc.
language		code	Language of the resource content Details The base language in which the resource is written. Language is provided to support indexing and accessibility (typically, services such as text to speech use the language tag). The html language tag in the narrative applies to the narrative. The language tag on the resource may be used to specify the language of other presentations generated from the data in the resource. Not all the content has to be in the base language. The Resource.language should not be assumed to apply to the narrative automatically. If a language is specified, it should it also be specified on the div element in the html (see rules in HTML5 for information about the relationship between xml:lang and the html lang attribute).
text		Narrative	Text summary of the resource, for human interpretation Details A human-readable narrative that contains a summary of the resource and can be used to represent the content of the resource to a human. The narrative need not encode all the structured data, but is required to contain sufficient detail to make it "clinically safe" for a human to just read the narrative. Resource definitions may define what content should be represented in the narrative to ensure clinical safety. Contained resources do not have narrative. Resources that are not contained SHOULD have a narrative. In some cases, a resource may only have text with little or no additional discrete data (as long as all minOccurs=1 elements are satisfied). This may be necessary for data from legacy systems where information is captured as a "text blob" or where text is additionally entered raw or narrated and encoded information is added later.
contained		Resource[]	Contained, inline Resources Details These resources do not have an independent existence apart from the resource that contains them - they cannot be identified independently, and nor can they have their own independent transaction scope. This should never be done when the content can be identified properly, as once identification is lost, it is extremely difficult (and context dependent) to restore it again. Contained resources may have profiles and tags In their meta elements, but SHALL NOT have security labels.
extension		Extension[]	Additional content defined by implementations Details May be used to represent additional information that is not part of the basic definition of the resource. To make the use of extensions safe and manageable, there is a strict set of governance applied to the definition and use of extensions. Though any implementer can define an extension, there is a set of requirements that SHALL be met as part of the definition of the extension. There can be no stigma associated with the use of extensions by any application, project, or standard - regardless of the institution or jurisdiction that uses or defines the extensions. The use of extensions is what allows the FHIR specification to retain a core level of simplicity for everyone.
modifierExtension		Extension[]	Extensions that cannot be ignored Details May be used to represent additional information that is not part of the basic definition of the resource and that modifies the understanding of the element that contains it and/or the understanding of the containing element's descendants. Usually modifier elements provide negation or qualification. To make the use of extensions safe and manageable, there is a strict set of governance applied to the definition and use of extensions. Though any implementer is allowed to define an extension, there is a set of requirements that SHALL be met as part of the definition of the extension. Applications processing a resource are required to check for modifier extensions. Modifier extensions SHALL NOT change the meaning of any elements on Resource or DomainResource (including cannot change the meaning of modifierExtension itself). There can be no stigma associated with the use of extensions by any application, project, or standard - regardless of the institution or jurisdiction that uses or defines the extensions. The use of extensions is what allows the FHIR specification to retain a core level of simplicity for everyone.

Usage

Slot resources are used to provide time-slots that can be booked using an appointment. They do not provide any information about appointments that are available, just the time, and optionally what the time can be used for. These are effectively spaces of free/busy time.
Slots can also be marked as busy without having appointments associated.

A slot can have more than one appointment allocated to it. A scheduling system may permit multiple allocations up to a specific number of places. An example of this type of usage could be where the slot is being used for a group service that permits 5 participants at the same time.

A slot can be marked as over-booked indicating that there are too many appointments allocated to it.

In some situations a service may have a specific set of slots reserved for specific uses, such as "walk-ins" or a specific organization has a "standing booking" for Thursday mornings. These should be represented using the appointmentType field with a specified and agreed value.
Security Permissions or specific business rules on the system could enforce that only eligible appointments are allocated to them.

If a service had a weekly schedule created that permitted eight 1 hour appointments each day of a working week (Monday - Friday), this would be constructed by a single Schedule resource with the dates for the start and end of the week set, and then 40 (5x8) Slot resources associated with it.
As appointments fill up the schedule, these slots would individually be marked as busy as the appointments are filled into the slots.
The slots in a schedule do not need to be the same size, and can be different for different days of the week.

Slot instances do not have any recurrence information included. If recurring information is desired, this will be managed outside these resources, or included as extensions.

Note that booking an appointment does not necessarily require that slot resources be identified. When attempting to book an appointment, if the requestor knows ahead of time which schedulable resources are required, then identifying individual slots from the resources' schedules prior to creating the appointment is appropriate. However, in some medical scheduling scenarios, determining which resources are required for an appointment is very complex, and options other than using schedule+slot may be a better solution.

Referenced By

• Appointment