Device
A device in Care is a piece of equipment a facility owns and tracks — a ventilator, an infusion pump, a monitor, a camera. The record is the platform's durable answer to three questions: what equipment exists, where it sits right now, and which patient encounter it is supporting.
What it represents
In Care's FHIR-aligned model, a device maps to the Device resource. It holds the things you'd find on an asset register — names and identifiers, manufacturer and model, serial and lot numbers, manufacture and expiry dates — alongside the live picture of where the device is and what it is doing.
A device is the instrument, not a reading from it. The values a monitor produces are stored as observations on an encounter; the device record tracks the instrument itself across every location and patient it touches over its working life. One device, many encounters — the record is what keeps that history coherent.
Status
A device carries two status dimensions that move independently, so it can be in service yet temporarily out of action.
Operational status says whether the device is in service:
- Active — in service and usable
- Inactive — not currently in service
- Entered in error — the record was created by mistake and should be disregarded
Availability status describes its physical condition:
- Available — can be located and used
- Lost — cannot be found
- Damaged — needs repair before use
- Destroyed — no longer usable
Keeping these separate means a working device that has gone missing reads as active but lost — accurate, rather than forcing a single status to mean two things.
How it connects
A device moves through a facility, and Care records that journey as history rather than overwriting it:
- Facility — every device belongs to exactly one owning facility, set from context rather than chosen on each edit.
- Managing organization — the team accountable for the device. This also decides who can see and manage it, through the organization hierarchy.
- Current location — where the device sits today. Moving it closes the old placement and opens a new one, leaving an auditable trail of everywhere it has been.
- Current encounter — the patient encounter the device is actively supporting. Attaching and detaching follow the same close-then-open pattern; when an encounter is completed, its devices are released automatically.
Because placements and encounter links are kept as history, you can always answer "where was this last week?" or "which patients did it serve?" — not just where it is now.
Types
A device can carry an optional type that connects it to a registered plugin for behaviour beyond plain inventory tracking — the bundled example is a camera. The type is chosen at creation and cannot change afterward; deployments register their own through the device-type registry. A device with no type is still fully tracked; it simply has no specialised behaviour attached.
Permissions
Access to devices is governed by facility-scoped permissions.
| Permission | Description | System Roles |
|---|---|---|
can_manage_devices | Create devices, and update, delete, relocate, service, or change the managing organization of existing ones | Staff, Admin, Facility Admin, Pharmacist |
can_list_devices | View devices registered to a facility and their location, encounter, and service history | Staff, Admin, Doctor, Nurse, Facility Admin, Pharmacist |
can_manage_device_associations_to_encounters | Attach a device to or detach it from a patient encounter | Staff, Admin, Doctor, Nurse, Facility Admin |
can_write_encounter | Also required on the target encounter when attaching a device to it | Admin, Doctor, Nurse, Facility Admin |
can_write_facility_locations | Also required on the target location when placing a device there | Facility Admin, Admin, Staff |
can_manage_facility_organization | Also required on the organization when setting or clearing a device's managing organization | Facility Admin, Administrator |
Roles are granted through facility and organization memberships, and they cascade down the organization tree — a user's access to a device follows from the managing organization it sits under.
Related
- Reference: Device (technical)
- Concept: Facility
- Concept: Location
- Concept: Encounter
- Concept: Organization
FHIR reference
Care's device aligns with the FHIR Device resource, which represents a manufactured item used in delivering healthcare. Care extends it with location and encounter history so equipment can be traced across its working life.