The queue
Cases are grouped by where they have got to: open, being reviewed, resolved, and dismissed. Each row shows the record, the question raised about it, and when.
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Identity review
Work the queue of records that may not be what they claim: the same person registered twice, a record on the wrong account, or a chart started before anyone knew whose it was.
What you can do here
Candidates are questions
A record proposed as the same person is a question, not a finding. Nothing is folded together because a match was suggested, and how strong a match looks never decides anything on its own.
Taking a case
Take a case before you work it, so two people are not resolving the same pair at the same time. If someone else has changed it since you opened it, your change is refused rather than overwriting theirs.
What folding two records together does
One record survives and the other is folded into it. Nothing is deleted. The surviving record's chart is read across both records from then on, and entries that came from the other record say so. Medical record numbers move to the surviving record, so a number on an old label still finds the right chart.
It can be separated again
Because nothing moves, folding two records together can be undone. Medical record numbers are not moved back, because they may have been printed and filed under the surviving record since; that is its own question.
Different people is a finding
Recording that two records are different people is worth doing rather than dismissing the case. It is what stops the same pair being raised again next month.
Follow these steps
Raise a case
- Select Raise a case.
- Choose what kind of question it is, and the record it is about.
- For a possible duplicate, name the other record and say what suggested it.
- Write what you noticed, for whoever picks the case up.
Work a case
- Open the case to see both records, the signal that suggested them, and everything done so far.
- Take the case so nobody else works the same pair.
- Add another record if a third one turns out to be involved.
Fold two records together
- Select Resolve, then choose that they are the same person. Nothing is chosen for you.
- Compare the records side by side: record number, date of birth, sex, end of the mobile, when each was registered and how many chart entries each holds.
- Choose which record survives and which is folded into it. Prefer the one with more history on it.
- Record why, in your own words. A later review reads this.
- Confirm. The chart is read across both records from then on.
Close a case without merging
- Choose what you found. Only the answers that fit the kind of question are offered: a possible duplicate can be different people or nothing to do; a record on the wrong account can be attached to the right record; an unknown patient can be identified. Different people is offered on any case that has a second record on it, and is held until one is added.
- Record what you found, then close it.
Helpful habits
- Confirm identity with the patient or their documents before folding two records together. A match on a date of birth and a mobile number is a reason to look, not a reason to act.
- Let the record with more clinical history survive. Less has to be read across afterwards, and the numbers that move are the ones fewest people have seen.
- Write the reason for a merge as though the person reading it was not there. In a year, nobody will remember the conversation at the desk.
- Record that two records are different people rather than dismissing the case, so the pair is not raised again.
- Raise a case when something looks wrong even if you cannot resolve it. A question on file is better than a duplicate nobody noticed.
Tips
- Patient records cannot be merged from the contacts screen. Folding two people's medical histories together is a decision that belongs here, where both charts are checked and the reason is kept.
- If either record is a restricted chart, you need access to both before they can be folded together. Otherwise restricting a chart could be undone by merging a duplicate into it.
- Correcting an entry recorded against the wrong patient is still done on the chart, with a reason. A merge changes where records are read from; it does not correct what they say.
- Only owners, administrators and coordinators can resolve a case as a merge. Anyone clinical can raise one.