How does patient identification work?
Accurx Patient Triage frees up your phone lines and saves you time with simple online access for your patients, using a solution that is fully integrated with your clinical system 💻
🌟 If you don't currently have access to Patient Triage, click here to find out more and sign up for a free trial! 👨⚕️🚑
When patients submit requests through Patient Triage, they give various pieces of information about themselves. These are...
Name
Date of birth
Gender
Postcode
They also enter a contact number. If they provide a mobile number, they are asked whether they have access to the mobile. If they do have access to the mobile, they are sent a code by text which they are then asked to input back into the online form.
This is called 2-factor authentication (2FA) and is similar to security controls put in place for online banking. 2FA shows that whoever fills in the online form has access to the same mobile phone as that listed on their PDS record.
When patient requests submitted through Patient Triage come back to the practice, there are several different ways they will appear in the Accurx inbox 👇
A) Verified or Matched patient requests
If the details that a patient submits match exactly to a patient on PDS that is registered at your practice and they have been able to show that they have the mobile phone number on PDS (bypassing the 2FA process), we believe that the patient has proven their identity.
These patient requests will be returned to the Accurx inbox matched/linked to the patient. The patient's name will appear at the top of the request. You will be able to save these requests directly to the patient's medical record.
B) 'Patient not found' requests
Sometimes patient requests will appear in the Accurx inbox as "Patient not found". There are 2 reasons this might happen:
The patient was unable to complete the mobile phone verification
If the patient's details match exactly to a patient on PDS that is registered at your practice but they have not passed 2FA then the request will appear as "Patient not found" in the inbox, with a suggestion of who the patient request might belong to.
You will need to confirm that you are happy the request is from the patient that we found on PDS before being able to save the information to the medical record.
There could be many different reasons why a patient was unable to complete mobile phone verification such as:
The patient didn't have their mobile phone on them at the time of submitting the request.
The mobile phone number that was given was different to that on the medical record.
The patient gave a landline number.
The details that the patient submitted didn't match exactly to a patient on PDS that is registered with your practice.
If we cannot find a patient who is registered at your practice on PDS with the information that has been submitted, the patient request will appear with no suggested patients linked to it.
You can manually search for a patient and match their requests to them. This article goes through this step-by-step.
⚠️ Before matching up a 'Patient not found' request to a patient and saving the information to the patient's record, be aware of the type of query that has been submitted and whether there is any risk associated if the request is not legitimate. It may be necessary to take extra steps to confirm the patient's identity (e.g. phone call) before saving the request to the record⚠️
What if I accidentally matched a patient request up to the wrong patient?
Can unregistered patients submit requests?
We have chosen to make Patient Triage very easy to use for patients to use, with no account or app needed. This means that patients registered at a different practice could submit a request to your practice - this happens about 1% of the time.
Patients must submit a valid phone number with their request. If we have found the patient on the PDS (Spine), we will also display their registered practice with their submitted request. We suggest you call the patient to let them know they aren't registered at your practice; if you are concerned, you could also let their practice know they have contacted you.
If you still have any questions or concerns, feel free to chat with us using the green message bubble in the bottom right-hand corner of this page. 👉