What is the difference between a Health Service Category, a Health Service Offering, and a Description? – OceanMD

Definitions

The terms "Health Service Categories" and "Health Service Offerings" are often used interchangeably, however it is important to truly understand the difference in their meanings and their interaction with the "Description" value of a referral.

What are 'Health Service Categories'?

Health Service Categories are a defined list of terms that are used in the Ocean Healthmap to support simpler searching, filtering, and Directory Listing creation.
This defined taxonomy is used to help categorize the Health Service Offerings on a Directory Listing in the Ocean Healthmap.
A complete list of the defined Health Service Categories is available here.

What is a 'Health Service Offering'?

A Health Service Offering is a customizable, searchable description of a service that is listed on the Directory Listing in the Ocean Healthmap. Health Service Offerings are mapped to the most appropriate Health Service Category.
In many cases, a Directory Listing may simply use a defined Health Service Category as their Health Service Offering, however, the option for full customization is possible using Health Service Offerings.

What is a referral 'Description'?

A referral Description is the value associated with a referral that is used to describe the service being requested/provided.

The Description value for a referral is most often inherited from the name of the Health Service Offering for the referral (while the name of the Health Service Offering is most often inherited from the name of the Health Service Category value associated with the offering, unless otherwise customized).

The Description value for a referral is the value that both users and patients see when interacting with the referral. For example, it appears: at the top of the referral when it's opened in the Ocean Portal, under the "Description" column in the 'eReferrals & eConsults' area of the Ocean Portal, at the top of the Ocean Referral Record PDF, and in email notifications sent to patients and clinicians.

Ocean supports the ability to set the Description for a referral to a pre-determined value based on referrer's answers to the questions on the referral form at the time of sending the referral. This advanced configuration option is achieved by dynamically setting a 'referralDescription' value for the referral via scripting in the referral form.

In some cases, referral recipients may also manually change the Health Service Category and Description value for a referral once it has been received at their Ocean Site. This can be helpful in the case where the recipient would like to adjust an incorrect or inaccurate Health Service Category and/or Description for the referral.

Why do they each exist?

The Ocean Healthmap is a comprehensive, map-based directory that makes it easy to search and access health care services. This is made possible through the use of a defined list of possible health care services - namely Health Service Categories. The defined list of Health Service Categories allows for discrete categorization of services offered by all health care providers on the Ocean Healthmap. This ensures that when a specific health care service is being searched for, the applicable providers of that service are properly accounted for in the search results.

However, it is important to acknowledge that a single defined list of possible health care services will not always capture the nuances of the service(s) being provided. This is addressed through the use of Health Service Offerings. The Health Service Offerings presented on a Directory Listing in the Ocean Healthmap can be customized to reflect greater accuracy of the specific name or nuance of the health care services being offered.

For example, a clinic offering dermatological services could add the specific 'Dermatology' Health Service Category as a Health Service Offering on their Directory Listing, but only offer a subset of specific services or programs. To communicate this nuance to potential referrers browsing the Ocean Healthmap, they can customize the name of the offering for accuracy - such as renaming it to 'Pigmented Lesion / Mole Clinic' if they only offer these specific dermatological services.

Referrers who are browsing the 'Dermatology' Health Service Category on the Ocean Healthmap would see the clinic's Directory Listing with the 'Pigmented Lesion / Mole Clinic' Health Service Offering, since it is truly the 'Dermatology' Health Service Category with a customized Health Service Offering name.

When a referral is sent for the customized 'Pigmented Lesion / Mole Clinic' Health Service Offering, Ocean maintains both the 'Dermatology' Health Service Category and 'Pigmented Lesion / Mole Clinic' Health Service Offering values in the backend for analytics and filtering purposes, and the Description value for the referral is typically inherited automatically from the customized 'Pigmented Lesion / Mole Clinic' Health Service Offering name.

However, in the case that clinical workflows or referral management processes may benefit from a more specific Description of the referral based on the answers to the referral form (e.g., the anatomical location of the pigmented lesion), the referral form may be configured to set a Description value different than the name of the Health Service Offering to convey this more conveniently (e.g., 'Pigmented Lesion - Left Shoulder').

If a mistake was made by the referring provider when filling out the referral form, the referral recipient also has the ability to manually change the Health Service Category and Description value for the referral to correct the mistake (e.g., changing 'Pigmented Lesion - Left Shoulder' to 'Pigmented Lesion - Right Shoulder').

What if I can't find the exact Health Service Category for my Directory Listing?

If you are unable to locate a Health Service Category in Ocean that exactly matches the services you offer, we recommend adding the most similar Health Service Category as a Health Service Offering on your Directory Listing. You can then customize the name of the Health Service Offering to more accurately reflect the specific service(s) you offer.

How do I customize the name of my Health Service Offering?

You can customize the name of your Health Service Offering by following the steps below:

Navigate to the 'Health Service Offerings' tab within your Directory Listing settings.

In the 'Health Service Offerings' section, search for and select the most applicable Health Service Category to add it as a Health Service Offering on your Directory Listing.

If your Directory Listing contains multiple Health Service Offerings, make sure that you select the proper one from the list and then specify your custom Health Service Offering name in the 'Offering name' field.

For your ease of reference, the name of the associated Health Service Category will remain visible below the 'Offering name' field, and it will appear in parentheses in the list of offerings.
Click the 'Save' button to save your changes.

Can I request additional Health Services Categories?

No, you cannot request that additional Health Service Categories be added as they are a standardized and defined list in Ocean. Under certain circumstances, additional synonyms for Health Service Categories may be added to enhance the searching and filtering capabilities within the Ocean Healthmap.