# The organisation concept

GNUmed supports two levels of capturing organisational structure only. It does not attempt to (fail at) mirror actual hierarchies within organisations, much like not replicating HL7 for storage of test results (because there is plenty of other test result sources).

1. the politico-administrative entity which is the organisation (stored in `dem.org`)
2. operational units in which an organisation manifests itself, such as branches, offices, etc. (stored in `dem.org_unit`)

What constitutes an operational unit is up to the GNUmed praxis (or even individual providers therein). Useful criteria are:

- an operational unit only ever has one address (although several units can share the same address)
- an operational unit has meaningful distinctness to achieving patient care