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Data Model

warning

Satxuma is still under active development. It is not yet HIPAA compliant and should only be used with dummy data.

Understanding Satxuma's data model is key to understanding its capabilities and limitations. From a high level, you could visualize Satxuma's data like this

Users and Organizations​

At the highest level, Satxuma has users and organizations.

  • A user is an account associated with a real human. You create one when you sign up for Satxuma.
  • An organization is a container for a therapy company. Any user can create an organization (see the Quick Start Guide).

Within an organization, you can manage facilities, patients, payors, and more. Data is isolated per organization: for example, data in ABC Therapy cannot be accessed by users outside of ABC Therapy.

People​

Each organization contains a collection of people. For example, ABC Therapy might have patients, therapists, and physicians.

Each person has a role:

  • patient
  • physician
  • therapist
  • other

A person's role determines what features and data are available for that person.

People vs. Users​

It's important to distinguish between a person and a user:

  • A user is a human who has signed up for Satxuma.
  • A person is a record in your organization's database, representing a human (who may or may not be a Satxuma user).

Example:​

  1. You add a therapist named Kelly to ABC Therapy. This creates a person record.

  2. You invite Kelly (via email) to join ABC Therapy company.

  3. Kelly (the human) signs up for Satxuma at satxuma.com/signup. This creates a user record.

  4. Kelly accepts your invitation to join ABC Therapy. Her user record is then linked to the person record. In this case, we say that user-Kelly claims ownership of person-Kelly.

When we say that a user “belongs to an organization,” what we really mean is: the user owns a person record that belongs to that organization.

Multiple Organizations​

A single Satxuma user can belong to multiple organizations.

Example:​

Richard works PRN for both ABC Therapy and DEF Therapy. Each organization can invite him (using the same email address, e.g. richard@gmail.com). When Richard logs in, he can switch between organizations from a dropdown menu.

info

Sometimes companies prefer employees to sign up with company-specific email addresses. For example, Richard might sign up as richard@abctherapy.com for ABC and richard@deftherapy.com for DEF, resulting in two separate Satxuma users.

Facilities, Payors, and Events​

Organizations can also manage:

  • Facilities (e.g. outpatient clinics, skilled nursing facilities)
  • Payors (e.g. insurance companies, Medicare/Medicaid programs)
  • Events (organization-specific scheduling or operational events)

Patients, Admissions, and Facilities​

Most EMRs directly link a patient to a facility:

In Satxuma, patients are linked to facilities via admissions:

This design has several advantages:

  • A patient can be linked to multiple facilities.

  • A patient can be admitted to the same facility multiple times.

  • Duplicate patient records across facilities are avoided. (Other EMRs often require separate patient entries per facility.)

note

In Satxuma, an admission is synonymous with an episode in other EMRs.

Cases​

A (therapy) case is a discipline-specific container for therapy services. A patient can have zero, one, or multiple OT, PT, SLP, and/or RT cases. In Satxuma, a case cannot exist without an evaluation (and vice-versa), so when you create a case, Satxuma creates an evaluation within it.

Furthoremore, cases are usually (but not necessarily) linked to an admission.

Certifications​

A certification in Satxuma is just a generalized term that means "evaluation or recertification". Certifications exist within a therapy case container, so they (in a sense) inherit the attributes of their parent case, like the discipline and admission.

Evaluations​

An evaluation is the first certification in a therapy case; it's a document where a therapist describes a patient's status and (potentially) puts together a treatment plan for the patient.

Considerations

  • An evaluation is created in conjunction with a new therapy case. (One cannot exist without the other).
  • An evaluation may or may not include a treatment plan.
  • An evaluation has a start and end date, referred to as the certification period.
    • If an evaluation excludes a treatment plan, end date = start date.
  • An evaluation may need to be signed by a therapist and a physician.

Recertifications​

A recertification is the 2nd, 3rd, ... nth certification of a therapy case; it's a document designed to reasses a patient after their initial treatment period, in anticipation of extending treatment into the future.

Considerations

  • A recertification can only be created for therapy cases that include a treatment plan.
  • A recertification has a start and end date, referred to as the certification period (just like the evaluation).

Progress notes​

A progress note is a document written by the therapist used to report periodic updates about a therapy case.

Discharge​

A discharge is a document that concludes a therapy case.

Treatments​

A treatment is an individual therapy session (AKA encounter / visit) provided to the patient by a therapist or assistant. In Satxuma, treatments live within a certification.