The disposition fields, under Followup, have changed, as part of AngelTrack's migration from the NEMSIS v3.4.0 data standard to v3.5.0.
This help document explains how the disposition fields changed.
NEMSIS is the national data standard for ambulance PCR data. When AngelTrack uploads data to a state trauma registry, or to a third-party billing app, the exchange is done in the NEMSIS format.
Version 3.4.0 was the current NEMSIS standard, but now version 3.5.0 is available, and as states migrate to the new version, so also must AngelTrack.
The most significant difference between v3.4.0 and the new v3.5.0 is the change in the patient disposition field.
Here is the old (v3.4.0) field that everyone is accustomed to:
old and busted
It is a single field named "Patient disposition", and it showed the overall outcome of the call. It would be typically set to the value "Patient treated, transported in our vehicle".
That field no longer exists in the new version 3.5.0 of the NEMSIS standard; instead it has been replaced with a group of five fields:
the new schema
As you can see, the five disposition fields now work in combination to represent all possible outcomes for each dispatch. They better capture the possibilities than did the old single field.
In order to reduce the bookkeeping impact of these new fields, AngelTrack will auto-set them as you run the call, using the accumulated PCR data. As such, AngelTrack does not allow you to modify the disposition fields until after the call closes.
This is a good time to get in the habit of clicking the "Patient Contact Is Made" button on the Run Call page, if you presently skip over it on your way into the PCR. That button-click will assist AngelTrack in automating the disposition fields for you, because AngelTrack auto-updates the disposition fields when each of the following events occurs:
This automation is the reason why the disposition fields may temporarily say "Cancelled prior to arrival on-scene", or "No patient contact", or similar; they will auto-update to show the correct values according to your progress.
After a call has closed, you may modify the disposition fields as necessary... but hopefully you won't need to.
Below is a technical explanation of the state validation process, which is certainly useful for crew members, but not strictly necessary for the usage of AngelTrack's PCR. That said, it may shed some light on the state data validation. The time of this writing (August 2021), all states are still on the older v3.4.0 standard, and therefore also are their data validation rules. Those validation rules are called a "schematron", because they are computer-readable.
Under the v3.4.0 standard, state data validation heavily depends on the old "Patient disposition" field -- a field which AngelTrack no longer offers in its user interface. Instead, AngelTrack calculates the old "Patient disposition" field on-the-fly, using data from the new disposition fields group. It is the responsibility of the crew member completing the report to determine if AngelTrack's auto-calculated fields are correct.
Therefore, the state data validation process now looks like this:
When the 'Patient disposition' is 'Patient treated, transported...', then you must take at least two sets of vital signs.
In this situation, to help you see which "Patient disposition" value AngelTrack will send to your state, the Followup page displays the "Equivalent to" that it has calculated from your answers to the five disposition fields:
the old v3.4.0 field calculated from your v3.5.0 responses
You can therefore see exactly how an adjustment to the disposition fields will affect your state data validation.
Once your state migrates to the NEMSIS v3.5.0 standard, then all of this conversion will go away.
All customer data has been in-place migrated to v3.5.0. This includes the "Patient disposition" field, which gets converted to the new disposition fields group using a standard conversion algorithm published by the NEMSIS national office.
When viewing your older calls, you will see that they are already using the new fields. Thus you will not have to do any paperwork when your state migrates to v3.5.0.