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The date values used should be the date range which was used by the extraction tool when querying the database and NOT the earliest and latest dates of items it found. The later behaviour is seen in some current PV feeds.
Communicating Changes (“UKRDC Method”)
This is where you only supply data which has been added, changed or deleted. This is the ideal.
Each main data item such as Procedures, LabOrders, Observations etc. has a field called ActionCode. This field can be populated with an instruction to Add, Replace or Delete the item of data. The ExternalID field is check if the data item already exists in the case of instructions to Replace or Delete.
Demographics must be sent in each file even if unchanged to allow us to check that the changes are being applied to the correct record.
Communicating Changes (“Full Record”)
An alternative to both of the above may be to send the entire patient record each time. This is logically simpler but we would need to test the resource implications at both ends.