This article covers ways to minimize the risk of creating duplicate patient records in EncaptureMD.
The patient record facilitates longitudinal tracking of patient studies across time which in turn allows clinicians to:
- Pull history and specific field level data from past studies into the current study ("Copy from previous"),
- Review prior reports within the current study,
- Provide serial comparison of successive study data.
Patient records for customers utilizing interface data (HL7 ADT and/or orders) generally do not follow the workflows outlined in this article.
Three common workflows for manually creating patient records include:
- Using the +Patient button within the +Study button located at the top left of the worklist
- Using the +Patient button within patient search toward the top right of the worklist
- Using +Patient in Patient Manager located in the left sidebar
Logic within EncaptureMD is designed to assist the user in determining whether a patient record exists or a new patient record needs to be created.
When a user attempts to create a new patient using the same first name, last name and date of birth (DOB) of an existing patient, the system will provide feedback regarding the existing record and an opportunity to abandon or proceed with creating a new record.
This video shows the creation of a new patient record using the name and DOB of an existing patient record.
The patient identifier (PID) or medical record number (MRN) must be unique for each patient record.
Users are prevented from adding a new patient record with PID that is already associated with an existing patient record within the EncaptureMD database.
This video shows attempting creation of a new patient record using the PID of an existing patient record - this method will not work.
Customers may utilize an image viewer connected to EncaptureMD create patient records. Studies created from structured reporting (SR) data utilize the same fields (name, DOB, and PID) to either match an existing patient or create a new patient record.
This video shows the creation of matching patient data when a study is opened through an image viewer linked to EncaptureMD.