Dividing Merged Patient Records

Administrators can restore merged patient records.

Before you begin

Ensure you have performed a fresh backup.

Procedure

  1. Now, obtain an old backup of your Clinical database, made prior to when the patients were merged. This backup will contain the individual records for each patient.
  2. Take the backup to a workstation computer:
    • If the workstation is not generally used by your staff, you can install Clinical on it now. Ensure you install or update to the same version as found on your server computer.
    • If the workstation is usually used by your staff, i.e. it has Clinical on it already, its current 'role' will be 'workstation'. You need to modify this, so that the computer runs as a 'standalone' installation. For instructions, follow the guide Modifying Current Installations.
  3. Now that the workstation computer has been configured to be 'standalone', it is ready for you to restore your old backup to it.
  4. With the backup restored, export the two patient records. To do this, locate and double-click the MedicalDirector Maintenance icon on your desktop. The MedicalDirector Maintenance window appears.
  5. Select the Database Tasks > Common menu item.
  6. Double-click Import/Export.
  7. (Optional) If this is the first time you have tried to access Import/Export during this session of working in MedicalDirector Maintenance, you will be prompted to select a Configuration, and enter your Username and Password.
  8. In the Import/Export Wizard, click Next to continue.
  9. Select the Export option and click Next to continue.
  10. In the Data Type window, select MedicalDirector Clinical and click Next.

    The XML option is selected by default. Although you can export patient clinical data in HTML format, you cannot import it in HTML format i.e. the HTML format is provided only for viewing patient data externally to Clinical. As such, you must select the XML format.
  11. In the Select Patients window, locate and select the patients you wish to export and click Next.
    To search for patients, enter their first initial or partial name into the Search field and click Search.
  12. In the Export File window, click Ellipsis to browse for a directory to store the file on your server computer or removable media.
    Within the folder you select, a second folder will be created when you perform the exportto store your exported files. Each exported file will be named to reflect the name of the associated patient.
  13. When you are ready to perform the export, click Next. The Exporting Data process begins. You will be notified upon completion.
  14. Click Finish to exit the export process.
  15. With the patient files exported, go to your server computer, and import the two patient records.
    You will need to perform the import process for each patient record.
  16. Still on the server computer, open each patient record to verify that you have imported the correct records.
  17. Now, for each of the separated patient records, you must record all missing content (if any).

Results

If the accidental merge occurred a week ago, and since then the merged patient had content recorded to their record, this content will be missing from the two individual records you just restored from the old backup. Therefore, you must now record this content to the separated records. You can use the merged record (which you will still have) to determine what content needs to be recorded to the two separated records.

What to do next

Once you are satisfied that each record is now up-to-date, you can either delete the merged record, or flag it as inactive.
  • Clinical instructions for flagging patients as inactive or permanently deleting.
  • If in Step 3 you had modified the role of the workstation computer (making it a 'standalone' computer), you must now change it back to a 'workstation'. For instructions, follow the guide Modifying Current Installations.