The same person twice
Patients, students, applicants and employees: a new record that looks like somebody already on file is held back and names them, "Create anyway" when it really is someone else, and the Possible Duplicates lists for the ones made before.
A second record for the same person is worse than a typing mistake: a patient’s allergies sit on one chart while the next prescription goes on the other, an employee is paid twice, a student’s marks split across two transcripts. So before a patient, student, applicant or employee is saved, it is compared with the records already there.
| Register | Looks like the same person when |
|---|---|
| Patients, students, applicants | The first and last name are the same (capitals and spaces ignored) and so is the date of birth. Where either record has no date of birth, the same name together with the same email or phone. |
| Employees | The same name together with the same email (work or personal), or the same person record. An employee record has no date of birth of its own. |
The same email or phone on its own is not a match: a family shares a phone, and a guardian’s email is on several children’s records. Neither is the same name on its own.
When a save is held back
- The form stays open and says "This looks like someone already on file", listing each match with its number, name and date of birth. Each is a link that opens the existing record in a new tab.
- If it is the same person, go back and use the existing record instead. Nothing has been saved.
- If it really is a different person — twins, or two people who share a name and a birthday — press "Create anyway — this is a different person". The record is saved, and that you confirmed it is written to the audit trail. It also counts as a review: the two records are not listed as possible duplicates of each other afterwards.
An edit is checked the same way when it changes a name, date of birth, email, phone or person: changing a record so that it matches somebody else is held back too. An import, and ASK, get the same answer as the form.
Duplicates made before this check
Each register has a Possible Duplicates list, by the same rule: EHR → Care Delivery → Possible Duplicate Patients, HRMS → People → Possible Duplicate Employees, and Student Lifecycle → Possible Duplicate Students and Possible Duplicate Applicants. Each row is a record with a likely twin: "Looks like patient" (or employee, student, applicant) names the other record’s number, and Possible matches says how many records it resembles. An empty list says that no two records look like the same person.
- Compare the two. Open this patient (or employee, student, applicant) opens the record on the row; Open the patient it looks like opens the other one.
- If they are different people, choose Not a duplicate and say why — "twins, different mothers’ names", for example. The reason is required. The pair leaves the list, and the reason is kept in both records’ history.
- If they are the same person, keep working in one record and stop using the other.
A record saved with "Create anyway — this is a different person" has already been reviewed in this way, so it does not appear on the list beside the record it was compared with.
Merging two records into one is not available: a patient’s encounters, an employee’s payroll and a student’s enrollments belong to the record they were made on. The lists can be granted on a role like any other screen.