Patient records

The Clinical Coordinator starts with a patient number, display name, birth date and contact phone. The assigned clinician gives the record an accountable care owner. For a new patient arriving next week, the coordinator can inspect the patient identity and consent status before putting a visit on the schedule. A patient record is the common reference for encounters, consents, care tasks and payments. That link matters when someone has more than one visit: the next person can find the earlier care episode without treating a name match as proof of identity.

• Patient number. The coordinator uses the number and birth date to select the intended person before scheduling.
• Assigned clinician. The staff reference points to a named person; governance maintains any separate care-team assignment.
• Consent context. The patient status and each purpose-specific consent need separate checks before care.

Agree who assigns patient numbers, who can change contact details and when a clinician assignment should be revised. Decide how the practice checks a patient’s identity before it records consent or schedules a visit. A care-team assignment has an access purpose and effective dates. The Clinical Governance Administrator should review those dates when a clinician joins or leaves a patient’s care team.

Take a patient with a scheduled first visit. Confirm that the patient number points to the intended person, the assigned clinician is current and the consent purpose applies to that visit. If a signed consent has expired or been withdrawn, resolve the consent before treating it as current. Then open the encounter from the patient record and confirm that the same person appears there. Keep this rehearsal small enough for a coordinator and clinician to follow together.

For a returning patient, compare the number and birth date before opening an older encounter. The assigned clinician on Patients can differ from a dated care-team assignment, so ask governance to confirm which person should see the new episode. Keep the patient-level consent status separate from the signed document for the visit’s purpose.

• Active patient records — Check the patient number, assigned clinician and patient-level consent status before scheduling.
• Pending consents — Inspect the linked person, date and evidence before the next handoff.

Follow the care process and the access model. For setup sequence, see implementation.