Patient and care team

The patient record carries a patient number, display name, birth date and contact phone. It also points to an assigned clinician and carries a consent status. Referrals, encounters, care tasks and consent records each refer back to the patient. A coordinator should resolve the correct patient before attaching a specialty request; the care team should then follow that same identity across the referral and subsequent visit.

The assigned clinician on the patient is a useful point of reference, but an active care team assignment records a more specific access purpose and effective dates. A clinician may appear in several assignments. The team should inspect the assignment that covers this patient and work, rather than relying on a staff name alone.

• Identify. The Referral Coordinator confirms the patient number and the patient selected for a new referral.
• Assign. The Care Operations Manager records the clinician, access purpose and effective period for care team work.
• Check. The Referral Reviewer and Clinician review current assignment and consent context before acting on a patient case.

Decide how patient numbers are established and how duplicate identities are corrected. Agree who can edit contact details and assigned clinician information. For assignments, define the access purpose vocabulary and when an assignment ends. The effective dates should reflect real coverage, especially when a clinician changes teams or a patient is referred to a different specialty.

Purpose-specific consent records contain a version, signed date, expiry date, document and status. The team should decide who records a new signature and how it checks expiry for the intended purpose. Patient consent status and a particular signed consent answer related but different questions. Review both on an actual care case before using them as a handoff signal.

A patient with an existing number receives a new specialty referral. The coordinator checks the number and selects that patient. The manager confirms an Active assignment for the clinician and the relevant access purpose. The clinician reviews a Signed consent record whose dates cover the planned work. If the patient has an older withdrawn consent or an Ended assignment, the team should resolve the mismatch before moving the case forward.

Ask another team member to open the referral and find the same patient and clinician context. The check should be possible from linked records rather than a private spreadsheet. Keep any correction to the patient identity deliberate, because a mistaken patient link would carry through later encounter and follow-up work.

• Active Care Team Assignments — Current patient and clinician links with their access purpose and dates.
• Signed Consents — Purpose-specific signed consent records with expiry dates.

Review the care access path and inspect the data model.