If you set the search to Contacts, how should the template be modified to count patient contacts?

• A. Return a single result for each patient
• B. Return one result for each patient contact that meets the report's criteria
• C. Return a summary per patient
• D. Ignore contacts and focus on records

Answer: (B)

When counting patient contacts, the template should produce one row for every contact that matches the report criteria. That level of granularity is needed because the search scope is Contacts, so each contact event is a separate item to count. If you instead return a single result per patient or a summary per patient, multiple contacts for the same patient would be collapsed into one entry, making it impossible to count how many contacts actually occurred. Ignoring contacts and focusing on records would miss the contact data entirely.

For example, if a patient has several qualifying contacts, you want each of those contacts to show up as its own result so the total count reflects all events. Returning one result per patient would hide that detail, and returning a summary would only give a per-patient total rather than the per-contact activity.

Thus, return one result for each patient contact that meets the report's criteria to accurately count the contacts.