Date-Time fields

From WikiHIT

Date/time of observation is Act.effectiveTime in HL7, the "clinically relevant time." In other words, the observation is not meaningful without this time. This is a required attribute even if users have to estimate the time.

Act.availabilityTime, which is system generated, indicates when the act became available in the system. It is required, but users don't need to enter it. This time indicates the earliest moment when someone could have seen the data electronically.

HL7 describes date/time of recording as Participation.time of the author. This time is optional except when the data enterer is not the author. "At 12:45 (Participation.time of author) Pat said the patient's temperature was 98.9 at 12:30 (effectiveTime). Sandy entered that observation (for Pat) into the system at 13:00 (availabilityTime).

So, while Sandy could make note of the time of Pat's recording in Participation.time, Pat is not likely to.