Patient intake forms are one of the most productive applications of SDC. Understanding the flow prevents common integration mistakes.
End-to-end flow
1. Patient receives form link 24-48 hours pre-visit. 2. Form pre-populated from known Patient data. 3. Patient completes on mobile or desktop. 4. QuestionnaireResponse posted to FHIR store. 5. $extract operation converts to Observation, Condition, other resources. 6. Check-in staff reviews response at visit. 7. Clinician has structured data available for visit.
FHIR resources involved
1. Questionnaire — form definition. 2. QuestionnaireResponse — submitted answers. 3. Patient — pre-population source and subject. 4. Observation — extracted structured answers. 5. Condition — extracted condition history. 6. Consent — treatment consent from form.
Pre-population extension
SDC's pre-population extension uses FHIRPath expressions to pull data from FHIR resources into the form on load. Requires FHIR access at render time.
Extraction patterns
1. Definition-based. Each item has definition URL pointing to target resource element. Renderer extracts based on this. 2. StructureMap-based. Separate StructureMap resource defines transformation. More flexible; needs execution engine.
Completion rate levers
1. Pre-population → +15-20 pp. 2. Mobile-first UI → +10-15 pp. 3. Save-and-resume → +10 pp for long forms. 4. Visible time estimate → +3-5 pp.
Common intake form mistakes
1. No pre-population. Patients retype known data. 2. Desktop UI on mobile. UX fails. 3. No save-and-resume. Session loss = restart. 4. Manual extraction. Data trapped in Questionnaire. 5. No terminology binding. Free-text coded values.
Vendor tooling
| Platform | Pre-population | $extract |
Mobile UX |
|---|---|---|---|
| Aidbox Formbox | Full | Full | Yes |
| LHC-Forms | Full | Full | Yes |
| Smile CDR SDC | Full | Both | Yes |
Integration surface
1. Form delivered via portal, mobile app, or email link. 2. SMART launched for context-carrying. 3. FHIR REST for QuestionnaireResponse posting. 4. Server-side or client-side extraction.
SDC-based intake is production-mature. Get pre-population, mobile UX, extraction right and adoption follows.
