Concepts

Learn about the different types of concepts and their nuances

Concepts define the different pieces of information that you collect as part of your service delivery.

For example, if you collect the blood pressure of a subject in a form, then "Blood Pressure" should be defined as a concept. You would notice that every question in a form requires a concept.

The datatype of a concept determines the kind of data can be stored against a concept, and therefor against the form question or form element. Using concepts with datatypes ensures incorrect answers are not captured in a form question, and is helpful for eventually data aggregation, validation and reporting.

Supported DataTypes in Concepts

The following datatypes are supported while defining concepts to be used in forms:

Concept DataTypeDescription
Numeric concepts Numeric concepts are used to capture numbers. When creating a numeric concept, you can define normal ranges and absolute ranges. In the field application, if an observation for a concept collected goes beyond the normal range, then it is highlighted in red. Values above the absolute range are not allowed. For instance for concept: Blood Pressure (Systolic), you can choose a Numeric concept with ranges.
Coded concepts (and NA concepts) Coded concepts are those that have a fixed set of answers. For instance for Blood Group you would choose a coded concept with values: A+, B+, AB+, etc.

These answers are also defined as concepts of NA datatype.
ID datatype A concept of Id datatype is used to store autogenerated ids. See Creating identifiers for more information on creating autogenerated ids. For instance PatientIDs, TestIDs, etc.
Media concepts (Image, Video and Audio)Images and videos can be captured using Image and Video concept datatypes. For audio recording, Audio datatype can be used.
Text (and Notes) concepts The Text data type helps capture one-line text while the Notes datatype is used to capture longer form text.
Date and time conceptsThere are different datatypes that can be used to capture date and time.
Date - A simple date with no time
Time - Just the time of day, with no date
DateTime - To store both date and time in a single observation
Duration - To capture durations such as 4 weeks, 2 days etc.
Location conceptsLocation concepts can be used to capture locations based on the location types configured in your implementation.

Location concepts have 3 attributes:
1. Within Catchment - Denotes whether the location to be captured would be within the catchment already assigned to your field workers. This attribute defaults to true and is mandatory.

2. Lowest Level(s) - Denotes the lowest location type(s) you intend to capture via form elements using this concept. This attribute is mandatory.

3. Highest Level - Denotes the highest location type that you would like to capture via form elements using this concept. This attribute is optional.
Subject conceptsSubject concepts can be used to link to other subjects.

Each Subject concept can map to a single subject type.

Any form element using this concept can capture one or multiple subjects of the specified subject type.
Phone Number conceptsFor capturing the phone number. It comes with a 10 digit validation. OTP verification can be enabled by turning on the "Switch on Verification" option. Avni uses msg91 for OTP messages, so msg91 Auth key and Template need to be step up using the admin app.
Group Affiliation concepts Whenever automatic addition of a subject to a group is required Group Affiliation concept can be used. It provides the list of all the group subjects in the form and choosing any group will add that subject to that group when the form is saved.
Encounter Encounter concepts can be used to link an encounter to any form.

Each Encounter concept can map to a single encounter type. It should also provide the scope to search that encounter. Also, name identifiers can be constructed by specifying the concepts used in the encounter form.

Any form element using this concept can capture one or multiple encounters of the specified encounter type.

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