Before you can create encounter notes, prescriptions, and so on, the patient must exist in your system.
After you add a patient, you can upload a picture of the patient, or assign them an avatar. For more information, visit Updating patient avatars (chart pictures).
💡 Tips:
You can also add patients from the patient search window, or when adding an appointment to the schedule.
In Ontario, if you have a health card swipe reader, you can swipe the patient’s card to quickly add them. For more information, visit Using a swipe card reader (Ontario).
📌 Note: For PEI users, add the patient from the provincial Client Registry instead of with the steps below. Refer to Adding a patient from the Client Registry to the CHR (PEI) for more information.
Steps
1. From the main menu, click Patients.
2. In the top-right corner, click New Patient. The New Patient window opens, where you can add all the pertinent demographic information for the patient.
3. From the General tab, enter the patient demographic information. First Name, Last Name, Date of Birth, Sex, and Identification are required.
📌 Note: The patient age, date of birth, sex, and gender identity also appear at the top of the patient chart. These items can be copied to your clipboard with one single click and then pasted where you need it using Ctrl{Cmd}+P on your keyboard.
Most of the fields are self-explanatory, with the following clarifications:
Field | Description |
Title | Read-only; updates when you select a Prefix.
If you do not specify a prefix, the title defaults to Mr., Ms., or Mx. based on the gender identity or sex selected.
📌 Note: The CHR uses the Title as a patient variable in patient notifications. |
Prefix | Select from a variety of titles, such as Dr, Miss, Rev. The prefix is added as the patient’s Title.
If you do not specify a prefix, the default titles Mr., Ms., or Mx. are used according to the patient’s gender identity or sex.
📌 Note: The CHR uses the Title as a patient variable in patient notifications. |
Notification | Select the patient's preferred method to receive communications such as appointment notifications and Qnaires.
Options are None, Email and SMS, Email Only, SMS Only. You can change this at the time of sending the notification. |
Primary practitioner | The provider who cares for this patient in your practice. |
Primary location | If you have more than one location set up, select the primary location where this patient is seen.
📌 Note: If you are using role-based access control to limit user access to patients based on location, you must select a location in this field. If a patient does not have a specified location, all users will have to "break the glass" to access the patient's chart. |
Referring practitioner | If your clinic is a specialist clinic, or if you send consult letters to the referring provider, filling this field is important. Your bills automatically insert the referring provider information, which is required by many provincial insurers in order for the provider to get paid.
When you book an appointment, the referring practitioner is associated with the appointment.
📌 Note: The Referring Practitioner (RP) saved to an appointment does not change if it is updated in the patient chart after creating the appointment.
In addition, when you fax a signed encounter letter, when you click the Letter button in the top-right corner, the Referring practitioner's fax number (if entered in your contacts list) is automatically inserted. |
Identifications | Generally the patient's provincial health number.
⚠️ Important: Do not include spaces, hyphens, or slashes. If you include other characters or spaces, in some provinces the health number may be seen as invalid by the billing provider (e.g. MDBilling in Ontario).
You can add multiple identifications, such as if a patient recently moved from another province and is still covered under the old card until the new card becomes effective.
💡 Tip: Click the gear icon to change the default identification type.
💡 Tip: If there is an identification you frequently use but it is not in the list, you can add new identifications in Settings. Refer to Adding additional patient identifications.
📌 Note: The primary patient identification also appears at the top of the patient chart. To copy the identification to your clipboard, click the label or the value itself. Then you can paste it where you need it using Ctrl{Cmd}+P on your keyboard. |
4. From the Portal tab, select whether to enable the patient's access to the patient portal and e-booking for appointments. For more information, visit Enabling Patient Portal.
5. Click Save or Save and validate when you are done.
📌 Notes:
If you do not see the Save and validate button in your CHR, contact the TELUS Health support team through the support chat for more information.
If you clicked Save and validate, today’s date appears below Identifications. To learn more, visit Updating and validating patient demographics.
📌 Note: If the last name, first name, and identification match an existing patient's, you are warned that this may be a duplicate and are prompted to confirm whether you still want to create the patient.
The patient chart opens.
Updated November 22, 2023