Healthcare Service Unit Setup

Overview

Healthcare Service Units represent the physical locations in a hospital — buildings, floors, wards, consultation rooms, labs, operation theaters. They form a tree structure (parent-child hierarchy) and control appointment scheduling, inpatient bed management, and stock warehouse linking.

Tree Structure

Service units use Frappe's nested set model (lft/rgt fields) for hierarchical organization:

Hospital (is_group=1)
├── Outpatient Block (is_group=1)
│   ├── Consultation Room 1 (allow_appointments=1)
│   ├── Consultation Room 2 (allow_appointments=1, overlap=1, capacity=3)
│   └── Minor Procedure Room (allow_appointments=1)
├── Inpatient Block (is_group=1)
│   ├── General Ward (is_group=1)
│   │   ├── Bed GW-001 (inpatient_occupancy=1)
│   │   ├── Bed GW-002 (inpatient_occupancy=1)
│   │   └── Bed GW-003 (inpatient_occupancy=1)
│   └── ICU (is_group=1)
│       ├── Bed ICU-001 (inpatient_occupancy=1)
│       └── Bed ICU-002 (inpatient_occupancy=1)
└── Laboratory (allow_appointments=1)

Healthcare Service Unit Fields

Field	Type	Description
healthcare_service_unit_name	Data	Required, display name
is_group	Check	If checked, this is a container (floor, wing, ward) — not bookable
service_unit_type	Link → Healthcare Service Unit Type	Required if not a group. Defines behavior.
allow_appointments	Check	Fetched from service_unit_type, read-only
overlap_appointments	Check	Fetched from service_unit_type, read-only
service_unit_capacity	Int	Max concurrent appointments. Required if overlap_appointments=1
inpatient_occupancy	Check	Fetched from service_unit_type, read-only. Marks as a bed.
occupancy_status	Select	Vacant / Occupied (auto-managed, read-only)
company	Link → Company	Required. Limits visibility to company users.
warehouse	Link → Warehouse	ERPNext warehouse for stock consumption (e.g., procedure consumables)
parent_healthcare_service_unit	Link	Parent in the tree

Constraints: healthcare_service_unit_name + company must be unique (enforced at database level, line 141).

Healthcare Service Unit Type

Defines the behavior template for service units. Create types first, then assign to units.

Field	Type	Description
service_unit_type	Data	Unique name (e.g., "Consultation Room", "Ward Bed", "Lab")
allow_appointments	Check	Units of this type accept appointments
overlap_appointments	Check	Allow multiple simultaneous appointments (visible if allow_appointments=1)
inpatient_occupancy	Check	Units of this type are beds/rooms for inpatients (visible if allow_appointments=0)
is_billable	Check	Whether occupancy in this unit type generates charges (visible if inpatient_occupancy=1)
disabled	Check	Deactivate this type

If billable (inpatient rooms that charge per stay):

Field	Type	Description
item	Link → Item	Auto-created ERPNext Item (read-only)
item_code	Data	Item code (read-only)
item_group	Link → Item Group	Required
uom	Link → UOM	Required (usually "Hour" or "Day")
no_of_hours	Int	Hours per UOM unit (for rate calculation)
rate	Currency	Charge rate per UOM
description	Data	Fetched from Item

Capacity & Overlap Rules

No Overlap (default)

• overlap_appointments = 0
• Only one appointment per time slot
• Standard for consultation rooms

Overlap with Capacity

• overlap_appointments = 1
• service_unit_capacity = N (required, must be > 0)
• Up to N appointments in the same time slot
• Used for: multi-chair dental clinics, physiotherapy rooms, group consultation
• The slot selection UI shows a badge with remaining capacity and disables the slot when full

Validation (healthcare_service_unit.py)

set_service_unit_properties() (line 42):

• Copies allow_appointments, overlap_appointments, inpatient_occupancy from the service unit type
• Validates: if overlap_appointments=1, then service_unit_capacity must be > 0

Bulk Creation

For wards with many beds, use the bulk creation API:

frappe.call(
    "healthcare.healthcare.doctype.healthcare_service_unit.healthcare_service_unit.add_multiple_service_units",
    {
        "parent": "General Ward",
        "service_unit_type": "Ward Bed",
        "company": "Your Hospital",
        "count": 20,            # number of units to create
        "prefix": "GW-Bed"     # naming prefix (generates GW-Bed-0001 through GW-Bed-0020)
    }
)

This whitelist method (line 73) creates units with auto-incrementing names under the specified parent.

Related Code

• Service Unit: healthcare/healthcare/doctype/healthcare_service_unit/healthcare_service_unit.py
  • set_service_unit_properties() — line 42
  • add_multiple_service_units() — line 73 (whitelisted)
  • on_doctype_update() — line 141 (unique constraint)
• Service Unit Type: healthcare/healthcare/doctype/healthcare_service_unit_type/healthcare_service_unit_type.json