As we are working on the auto-generation of patient identifiers in MF (issue MF-218), we want to use the auto-generation options to determine whether the screen should allow manual entry of an Identifier Type or not.
An auto-generation option is a mapping between an Identifier Type , a Location (optional) and an Identifier Source .
to which we apply 2 possible options:
auto-generate: true/false
allow manual entry: true/false
Now my first remark is, it seems that currently the model does not restrict to a unique set of [Identifier Type/Location/Identifier Source]. Therefore we can end up with conflicting options for a given set.
Kept deliberately separate from the notion of Identifier Sources is the ability to enable auto-generation and allocation of a Patient Identifier from a particular source
@mseaton may be able to weigh in more, but that generally makes sense to me:
I can’t see a reason for having two sources assigned to a single identifier type, and I’m not sure how that would work… I assume that was just validation that was never implemented
Similarly, the false/false case may also just have been validation that had never been implemented, though I suppose you have a use case where you wanted to disable assigning new identifiers but wanted to keep the association for reference.
The use case may be rare, but it seemed like it should be possible to use a single generator for multiple sources, which may be the reason for separating out auto-generation and linking of a source to an identifier type
I think you can assume that this was not given a huge degree of intense design thought, and was added to the module to meet a need before it was a generally adopted module in the community. I think the validation you suggest makes sense.
This makes sense to me if an identifier type having more than one identifier source is not seen as a design flaw or something like having no validation coverage. I think an autogeneration option should directly be linked to either (With a one to one mapping):
Identifier type(With n identifiersources - the identifier source having no link to the option)
Identifier source(Identifier type having no link to the option)
But not both.
@mogoodrich Why would an identifier type have more than one auto generation option?
Whoops, sorry about that… I think there was a typo in my point, I meant identifier types, not sources
The use case may be rare, but it seemed like it should be possible to use a single generator for multiple identifier types which may be the reason for separating out auto-generation and linking of a source to an identifier type
So, yes, I would agree that there’d be a one-to-one mapping between identifier type and auto generation source.
I think we should allow a many-to-one mapping between auto_generation_option and identifier sources.
So you could have two identifier types, each with their own auto_generation_option entry, that link to the same source.
