Key terms

Every page in these docs uses the words below with the meaning given here.

The levels of a care flow

A care flow is built from four nested levels, top down:

Care flow
└── Track
    └── Step
        └── Action

Care flow

A set of activities performed by the care team and/or the patient to reach or maintain a desired state of health. See What is a care flow? for the other names people use for it.

Track

A phase of a care flow. Tracks can run one after another (Diagnosis → Treatment → Follow-up) or at the same time (daily metrics alongside monthly appointments).

The number of tracks a care flow needs depends on its shape: repeating parts, long-running flows, and flows serving more than one purpose all tend to need more.

Step

A container holding everything that happens at one moment for one group of patients.

When every action in a step is complete, the care flow moves to the next step.

Action

The smallest building block: what needs to happen, and who does it. A form to fill in, a message to send, a calculation to run, an API call to make.

Every action is either a user action or a system action:

• User actions need a person: filling in a form, reading a message.
• System actions run by themselves: calculations, API calls.

Actions that collect input, like forms and checklists, are blocking: the care flow waits for them.

Data points and variables

Data point

A single piece of data captured or generated during a care flow. Data points come from forms, baseline data, and API calls, and from the system itself: calculation results, step activation and completion times.

The care flow's logic tests data points: "if this answer, then that step". Every data point in a care flow is listed in the Data catalog.

Dynamic data variable

A placeholder that fills in a data point's value when a message is sent. Add one with the / command in any text editor, including messages and API calls.

Hello {Patient_first_name}
Treatment: {Treatment_selection}

Variables are how one message becomes personal to each patient, and how data reaches other systems.

Activities record what actually happened

Activity

A record that something happened, or needs to happen. When an action activates, Awell creates an activity to track its start time, status, and completion.

Activities cover more than actions: tracks starting and completing, steps activating, and reminders going out all form part of a care flow's full history.

Activity feed

A chronological log of activities as they are orchestrated, including timing delays. It shows what has happened to one patient, and in what order.

CareOps means the methodology or the portal

CareOps methodology

The practice of continuously designing, running, and improving care flows, with clinical, operations, engineering, product and compliance working in one loop. Its four stages are Design & Validate, Build & Operate, Monitor & Prove, and Rinse, Repeat. There is a public community and lifecycle at careops.org.

CareOps portal

The Awell application where an organization manages settings, branding, keys, global constants, and the Home page. When a page here says "in the CareOps portal", it means this application, not the methodology.

Panels group patients and the work waiting on them

Panel

A live list of patients or tasks, with the columns and filters a team needs to work from. A panel holds the setup; the data comes from what care flows already collect. See What Panels is.

View

A saved, tailored slice of a panel. One panel can carry several views, so the same setup serves different jobs without being duplicated.

Task

The Panels name for work waiting on someone. A form or a message in a care flow becomes a task in a panel. In Awell Care the same work appears as an activity against one patient.

Next steps

Terms specific to integrations (HL7, Mirth, ADT, SIU) are defined in EMR integration terminology under Connect systems.

Next: How a care flow is built — the same building blocks seen from the design canvas.