.. _userguide-basics-coremodule-healthprofessionals:health_professionals:

Health Professionals
====================
.. _userguide-basics-coremodule-healthprofessionals:health_professionals-the_health_professional_concept:

The Health Professional Concept
-------------------------------

The health professional is one of GNU Health's key components: It's used
in appointments, patient evaluation, surgeries, lab tests, etc. This is
why it is important to have them defined in your system before hand.

The health professional is a general concept: It covers physicians,
nurses, biochemists, psychologists, and any other occupation related to
health sciences.

.. _userguide-basics-coremodule-healthprofessionals:health_professionals-creating_and_editing_health_professionals:

Creating and Editing Health Professionals
-----------------------------------------

The Main steps involved in defining a Health Professional are:

#. Select (or create) the related party
#. Associate an internal user (login user) to the party
#. Define the health professional list of specialties
#. Set the default or main specialty

To list or update the health professionals in your institution, follow this path:
*Health →  Health Professionals*

Alternatively, you can use the command 'hp' from the command line:

Command line: HP

.. _userguide-basics-coremodule-healthprofessionals:health_professionals-creating_and_editing_health_professionals-party_associated_to_a_health_professional:

Party associated to a Health Professional
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

The health professional is a party with specific attributes.
This abstract concept of party allow us to be different entities
at the same time. For example, a health professional can also be a patient;
both entities sharing the property of being a person.
The party concept provides versatility and simplicity to GNU Health.

A health professional party need the *Person* and *health professional*
attributes to be set.

At this point, you need to enter the Health Professional demographics,
in the same way as you have done when creating an individual. You might
want to refresh the idea by glancing over the :ref:`userguide-basics-coremodule-individuals:individuals`
section.

.. _userguide-basics-coremodule-healthprofessionals:health_professionals-creating_and_editing_health_professionals-the_internal_user_field:

The Internal User field
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

The "internal user" field is the user that the individual types in then logging
into GNU Health. That user allows to digitally sign documents, and to audit
their actions.

You need to associate the health professional with the login (internal) user.

.. thumbnail:: ../../../images/gnuhealth_party_health_professional.png

Once you are done with the party, save the party record ( Ctrl + S ).

.. _userguide-basics-coremodule-healthprofessionals:health_professionals-creating_and_editing_health_professionals-health_professional_specific_fields:

Health Professional specific fields
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

A health professional might have more than one specialty. In the Health
Professional view, you can add all the specialties related to this particular
professional. Once you are done, **save the record ( Ctrl + S )**.
This is important so the system links the party with the health professional
record.

Finally, add the information related to the professional:

* Institution
* Practitioner ID
* Main Specialty
* Extra information

.. thumbnail:: ../../../images/gnuhealth_health_professional.png

Although these fields are not formally required, they are important and
should be entered in the system. Each health professional should have these
fields filled in whenever possible. For instance, the *Main Specialty*
field will be used as a default value whenever the doctor is assigned an
appointment, or when creating a new evaluation.