ICT Tip 51 – Socrates – How many Duplicate patients do you have?
I noticed recently in one or two sites I visited that they appeared to have quite a few duplicate patients and I wondered is this happening everywhere. There can be many reasons for having duplicate patients, especially if practices have joined together but it seems to happen a bit randomly at times as well.
The best way to see how many duplicate patients you have is to use the report called “Duplicate Date of Birth Patients” and click the matching surnames only box.
[Graphical user interface, application Description automatically generated]
This gives you a report including the number of duplicates you have. Not all are true duplicates but if you have a lot of them you might have to work through them to tidy them up. See tip 27 for how to merge files. You might often find that one duplicate is active while the other is inactive for instance. Its best not to have too many duplicates obviously, e.g. results from the lab might go into the wrong file etc.
I’d be interested in hearing if you do have a lot of duplicates, let me know your practice site and number of duplicates. If it proves to be, that there are lots everywhere we may need to address it in a more comprehensive way. Let me know your numbers at
(DON’T USE REPLY – THIS WOULD SEND YOUR MESSAGE TO EVERYBODY))
mjoyce@centrichealthblessington.iemailto:mjoyce@centrichealthblessington.ie
(DON’T USE REPLY – THIS WOULD SEND YOUR MESSAGE TO EVERYBODY))
Michael
Michael,
Have been doing some report work on duplicated patients on our socrates,
with some interesting results.
We identified 474 duplications, 66 of whom had passed away, 67 patients
were "inactive", we have 45 twins, 2, sets of triplets, and 4 couples who
share the same DOB but are unrelated.
A lot of duplications were babies, initially registered as "Baby Boy/Girl"
and then re-registered with the appropriate Christian Name.
I also know of 2 other sets of triplets, whose names did NOT appear!!!
It has generated quite a lot of Admin staff to merge all those who remain
active, and I wonder, to what benefit, as most of the duplicates, have one
set of notes with no entries!!!
Eric
On Thu, Jan 13, 2022 at 11:50 AM Michael Joyce <
mjoyce@centrichealthblessington.ie> wrote:
I noticed recently in one or two sites I visited that they appeared to
have quite a few duplicate patients and I wondered is this happening
everywhere. There can be many reasons for having duplicate patients,
especially if practices have joined together but it seems to happen a bit
randomly at times as well.
The best way to see how many duplicate patients you have is to use the
report called “Duplicate Date of Birth Patients” and click the matching
surnames only box.
[image: Graphical user interface, application Description automatically
generated]
This gives you a report including the number of duplicates you have. Not
all are true duplicates but if you have a lot of them you might have to
work through them to tidy them up. See tip 27 for how to merge files. You
might often find that one duplicate is active while the other is inactive
for instance. Its best not to have too many duplicates obviously, e.g.
results from the lab might go into the wrong file etc.
I’d be interested in hearing if you do have a lot of duplicates, let me
know your practice site and number of duplicates. If it proves to be, that
there are lots everywhere we may need to address it in a more comprehensive
way. Let me know your numbers at
(DON’T USE REPLY – THIS WOULD SEND YOUR MESSAGE TO EVERYBODY))
mjoyce@centrichealthblessington.ie
(DON’T USE REPLY – THIS WOULD SEND YOUR MESSAGE TO EVERYBODY))
Michael
Gpdiscussion mailing list -- gpdiscussion@centricgpforum.com
To unsubscribe send an email to gpdiscussion-leave@centricgpforum.com
Thanks you for this very valuable feedback Eric, it helps get a grip on weather this is an issue or not. I got just a few replies, it would be great to get a few more but based on those I got I estimate there could be as much as 10% duplicate patients in practices. However as Eric says it is a huge admin job to go through them all and fix them, is this an important enough issue to do this. In particular as Eric says lots of the duplicates are actually empty files so does it matter, I don’t know the answer yet.
I wonder how or why these empty files get created, I don’t know, any theories welcome.
I’ll continue to study the issue and keep you informed.
Michael
From: Eric Yelverton ericyelvo@gmail.com
Sent: Wednesday 19 January 2022 10:40
To: Centric GP Forum gpdiscussion@centricgpforum.com
Subject: Centric GP Forum Re: ICT Tip 51 – Socrates – How many Duplicate patients do you have?
Michael,
Have been doing some report work on duplicated patients on our socrates, with some interesting results.
We identified 474 duplications, 66 of whom had passed away, 67 patients were "inactive", we have 45 twins, 2, sets of triplets, and 4 couples who share the same DOB but are unrelated.
A lot of duplications were babies, initially registered as "Baby Boy/Girl" and then re-registered with the appropriate Christian Name.
I also know of 2 other sets of triplets, whose names did NOT appear!!!
It has generated quite a lot of Admin staff to merge all those who remain active, and I wonder, to what benefit, as most of the duplicates, have one set of notes with no entries!!!
Eric
On Thu, Jan 13, 2022 at 11:50 AM Michael Joyce <mjoyce@centrichealthblessington.iemailto:mjoyce@centrichealthblessington.ie> wrote:
I noticed recently in one or two sites I visited that they appeared to have quite a few duplicate patients and I wondered is this happening everywhere. There can be many reasons for having duplicate patients, especially if practices have joined together but it seems to happen a bit randomly at times as well.
The best way to see how many duplicate patients you have is to use the report called “Duplicate Date of Birth Patients” and click the matching surnames only box.
[Graphical user interface, application Description automatically generated]
This gives you a report including the number of duplicates you have. Not all are true duplicates but if you have a lot of them you might have to work through them to tidy them up. See tip 27 for how to merge files. You might often find that one duplicate is active while the other is inactive for instance. Its best not to have too many duplicates obviously, e.g. results from the lab might go into the wrong file etc.
I’d be interested in hearing if you do have a lot of duplicates, let me know your practice site and number of duplicates. If it proves to be, that there are lots everywhere we may need to address it in a more comprehensive way. Let me know your numbers at
(DON’T USE REPLY – THIS WOULD SEND YOUR MESSAGE TO EVERYBODY))
mjoyce@centrichealthblessington.iemailto:mjoyce@centrichealthblessington.ie
(DON’T USE REPLY – THIS WOULD SEND YOUR MESSAGE TO EVERYBODY))
Michael
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To unsubscribe send an email to gpdiscussion-leave@centricgpforum.commailto:gpdiscussion-leave@centricgpforum.com
This e-mail and any attachments including voice attachments may contain confidential, personal, sensitive, proprietary or legally privileged information. Anyone who is not the intended recipient should not use or open the document. Any information or voice recording used within this document or e-mail should not be forwarded to any other legal person or organisation or posted on any social media platform as to do so would be in breach of privacy and data protection legislation. If you have erroneously received this email or document, please delete immediately and notify the sender. If you have received this e-mail or documentation where there is a precise reason to forward to a third party, all rules regarding privacy and data protection should be followed. You will be liable for a third party breach.The recipients acknowledge that Centric Health or associated companies are unable to exercise control to ensure or guarantee the integrity of/over the contents of the information contained in e-mail transmission and further acknowledge that any views expressed in this message are those of the individual sender and no binding nature of the message shall be implied or assumed unless the sender does so expressly with due authority of Centric Health.
920 !
I will ask one of our v helpful Admin team to look through and tidy up and report back on same - main issue can arise when results are assigned to one chart and we cannot find them in other so best either merge or archive if "empty"
I see you are enlisting the help of Met Eireann to solve the issue Michael - "get a grip on weather" - thank goodness not only me that gets caught out on these grammar issues. LOL
Gavin
From: Michael Joyce mjoyce@centrichealthblessington.ie
Sent: 20 January 2022 08:34
To: Centric GP Forum gpdiscussion@centricgpforum.com
Subject: Centric GP Forum Re: ICT Tip 51 – Socrates – How many Duplicate patients do you have?
Thanks you for this very valuable feedback Eric, it helps get a grip on weather this is an issue or not. I got just a few replies, it would be great to get a few more but based on those I got I estimate there could be as much as 10% duplicate patients in practices. However as Eric says it is a huge admin job to go through them all and fix them, is this an important enough issue to do this. In particular as Eric says lots of the duplicates are actually empty files so does it matter, I don’t know the answer yet.
I wonder how or why these empty files get created, I don’t know, any theories welcome.
I’ll continue to study the issue and keep you informed.
Michael
From: Eric Yelverton ericyelvo@gmail.com
Sent: Wednesday 19 January 2022 10:40
To: Centric GP Forum gpdiscussion@centricgpforum.com
Subject: Centric GP Forum Re: ICT Tip 51 – Socrates – How many Duplicate patients do you have?
Michael,
Have been doing some report work on duplicated patients on our socrates, with some interesting results.
We identified 474 duplications, 66 of whom had passed away, 67 patients were "inactive", we have 45 twins, 2, sets of triplets, and 4 couples who share the same DOB but are unrelated.
A lot of duplications were babies, initially registered as "Baby Boy/Girl" and then re-registered with the appropriate Christian Name.
I also know of 2 other sets of triplets, whose names did NOT appear!!!
It has generated quite a lot of Admin staff to merge all those who remain active, and I wonder, to what benefit, as most of the duplicates, have one set of notes with no entries!!!
Eric
On Thu, Jan 13, 2022 at 11:50 AM Michael Joyce <mjoyce@centrichealthblessington.iemailto:mjoyce@centrichealthblessington.ie> wrote:
I noticed recently in one or two sites I visited that they appeared to have quite a few duplicate patients and I wondered is this happening everywhere. There can be many reasons for having duplicate patients, especially if practices have joined together but it seems to happen a bit randomly at times as well.
The best way to see how many duplicate patients you have is to use the report called “Duplicate Date of Birth Patients” and click the matching surnames only box.
[Graphical user interface, application Description automatically generated]
This gives you a report including the number of duplicates you have. Not all are true duplicates but if you have a lot of them you might have to work through them to tidy them up. See tip 27 for how to merge files. You might often find that one duplicate is active while the other is inactive for instance. Its best not to have too many duplicates obviously, e.g. results from the lab might go into the wrong file etc.
I’d be interested in hearing if you do have a lot of duplicates, let me know your practice site and number of duplicates. If it proves to be, that there are lots everywhere we may need to address it in a more comprehensive way. Let me know your numbers at
(DON’T USE REPLY – THIS WOULD SEND YOUR MESSAGE TO EVERYBODY))
mjoyce@centrichealthblessington.iemailto:mjoyce@centrichealthblessington.ie
(DON’T USE REPLY – THIS WOULD SEND YOUR MESSAGE TO EVERYBODY))
Michael
Gpdiscussion mailing list -- gpdiscussion@centricgpforum.commailto:gpdiscussion@centricgpforum.com
To unsubscribe send an email to gpdiscussion-leave@centricgpforum.commailto:gpdiscussion-leave@centricgpforum.com
This e-mail and any attachments including voice attachments may contain confidential, personal, sensitive, proprietary or legally privileged information. Anyone who is not the intended recipient should not use or open the document. Any information or voice recording used within this document or e-mail should not be forwarded to any other legal person or organisation or posted on any social media platform as to do so would be in breach of privacy and data protection legislation. If you have erroneously received this email or document, please delete immediately and notify the sender. If you have received this e-mail or documentation where there is a precise reason to forward to a third party, all rules regarding privacy and data protection should be followed. You will be liable for a third party breach.The recipients acknowledge that Centric Health or associated companies are unable to exercise control to ensure or guarantee the integrity of/over the contents of the information contained in e-mail transmission and further acknowledge that any views expressed in this message are those of the individual sender and no binding nature of the message shall be implied or assumed unless the sender does so expressly with due authority of Centric Health.
This e-mail and any attachments including voice attachments may contain confidential, personal, sensitive, proprietary or legally privileged information. Anyone who is not the intended recipient should not use or open the document. Any information or voice recording used within this document or e-mail should not be forwarded to any other legal person or organisation or posted on any social media platform as to do so would be in breach of privacy and data protection legislation. If you have erroneously received this email or document, please delete immediately and notify the sender. If you have received this e-mail or documentation where there is a precise reason to forward to a third party, all rules regarding privacy and data protection should be followed. You will be liable for a third party breach.The recipients acknowledge that Centric Health or associated companies are unable to exercise control to ensure or guarantee the integrity of/over the contents of the information contained in e-mail transmission and further acknowledge that any views expressed in this message are those of the individual sender and no binding nature of the message shall be implied or assumed unless the sender does so expressly with due authority of Centric Health.
(That is total patients so duplications less than half this figure - some 3 or 4 times)
From: Gavin Maguire gavin.maguire@centrichealth.ie
Sent: 20 January 2022 08:46
To: Centric GP Forum gpdiscussion@centricgpforum.com
Subject: Centric GP Forum Re: ICT Tip 51 – Socrates – How many Duplicate patients do you have?
920 !
I will ask one of our v helpful Admin team to look through and tidy up and report back on same - main issue can arise when results are assigned to one chart and we cannot find them in other so best either merge or archive if "empty"
I see you are enlisting the help of Met Eireann to solve the issue Michael - "get a grip on weather" - thank goodness not only me that gets caught out on these grammar issues. LOL
Gavin
From: Michael Joyce mjoyce@centrichealthblessington.ie
Sent: 20 January 2022 08:34
To: Centric GP Forum gpdiscussion@centricgpforum.com
Subject: Centric GP Forum Re: ICT Tip 51 – Socrates – How many Duplicate patients do you have?
Thanks you for this very valuable feedback Eric, it helps get a grip on weather this is an issue or not. I got just a few replies, it would be great to get a few more but based on those I got I estimate there could be as much as 10% duplicate patients in practices. However as Eric says it is a huge admin job to go through them all and fix them, is this an important enough issue to do this. In particular as Eric says lots of the duplicates are actually empty files so does it matter, I don’t know the answer yet.
I wonder how or why these empty files get created, I don’t know, any theories welcome.
I’ll continue to study the issue and keep you informed.
Michael
From: Eric Yelverton ericyelvo@gmail.com
Sent: Wednesday 19 January 2022 10:40
To: Centric GP Forum gpdiscussion@centricgpforum.com
Subject: Centric GP Forum Re: ICT Tip 51 – Socrates – How many Duplicate patients do you have?
Michael,
Have been doing some report work on duplicated patients on our socrates, with some interesting results.
We identified 474 duplications, 66 of whom had passed away, 67 patients were "inactive", we have 45 twins, 2, sets of triplets, and 4 couples who share the same DOB but are unrelated.
A lot of duplications were babies, initially registered as "Baby Boy/Girl" and then re-registered with the appropriate Christian Name.
I also know of 2 other sets of triplets, whose names did NOT appear!!!
It has generated quite a lot of Admin staff to merge all those who remain active, and I wonder, to what benefit, as most of the duplicates, have one set of notes with no entries!!!
Eric
On Thu, Jan 13, 2022 at 11:50 AM Michael Joyce <mjoyce@centrichealthblessington.iemailto:mjoyce@centrichealthblessington.ie> wrote:
I noticed recently in one or two sites I visited that they appeared to have quite a few duplicate patients and I wondered is this happening everywhere. There can be many reasons for having duplicate patients, especially if practices have joined together but it seems to happen a bit randomly at times as well.
The best way to see how many duplicate patients you have is to use the report called “Duplicate Date of Birth Patients” and click the matching surnames only box.
[Graphical user interface, application Description automatically generated]
This gives you a report including the number of duplicates you have. Not all are true duplicates but if you have a lot of them you might have to work through them to tidy them up. See tip 27 for how to merge files. You might often find that one duplicate is active while the other is inactive for instance. Its best not to have too many duplicates obviously, e.g. results from the lab might go into the wrong file etc.
I’d be interested in hearing if you do have a lot of duplicates, let me know your practice site and number of duplicates. If it proves to be, that there are lots everywhere we may need to address it in a more comprehensive way. Let me know your numbers at
(DON’T USE REPLY – THIS WOULD SEND YOUR MESSAGE TO EVERYBODY))
mjoyce@centrichealthblessington.iemailto:mjoyce@centrichealthblessington.ie
(DON’T USE REPLY – THIS WOULD SEND YOUR MESSAGE TO EVERYBODY))
Michael
Gpdiscussion mailing list -- gpdiscussion@centricgpforum.commailto:gpdiscussion@centricgpforum.com
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This e-mail and any attachments including voice attachments may contain confidential, personal, sensitive, proprietary or legally privileged information. Anyone who is not the intended recipient should not use or open the document. Any information or voice recording used within this document or e-mail should not be forwarded to any other legal person or organisation or posted on any social media platform as to do so would be in breach of privacy and data protection legislation. If you have erroneously received this email or document, please delete immediately and notify the sender. If you have received this e-mail or documentation where there is a precise reason to forward to a third party, all rules regarding privacy and data protection should be followed. You will be liable for a third party breach.The recipients acknowledge that Centric Health or associated companies are unable to exercise control to ensure or guarantee the integrity of/over the contents of the information contained in e-mail transmission and further acknowledge that any views expressed in this message are those of the individual sender and no binding nature of the message shall be implied or assumed unless the sender does so expressly with due authority of Centric Health.
This e-mail and any attachments including voice attachments may contain confidential, personal, sensitive, proprietary or legally privileged information. Anyone who is not the intended recipient should not use or open the document. Any information or voice recording used within this document or e-mail should not be forwarded to any other legal person or organisation or posted on any social media platform as to do so would be in breach of privacy and data protection legislation. If you have erroneously received this email or document, please delete immediately and notify the sender. If you have received this e-mail or documentation where there is a precise reason to forward to a third party, all rules regarding privacy and data protection should be followed. You will be liable for a third party breach.The recipients acknowledge that Centric Health or associated companies are unable to exercise control to ensure or guarantee the integrity of/over the contents of the information contained in e-mail transmission and further acknowledge that any views expressed in this message are those of the individual sender and no binding nature of the message shall be implied or assumed unless the sender does so expressly with due authority of Centric Health.
This e-mail and any attachments including voice attachments may contain confidential, personal, sensitive, proprietary or legally privileged information. Anyone who is not the intended recipient should not use or open the document. Any information or voice recording used within this document or e-mail should not be forwarded to any other legal person or organisation or posted on any social media platform as to do so would be in breach of privacy and data protection legislation. If you have erroneously received this email or document, please delete immediately and notify the sender. If you have received this e-mail or documentation where there is a precise reason to forward to a third party, all rules regarding privacy and data protection should be followed. You will be liable for a third party breach.The recipients acknowledge that Centric Health or associated companies are unable to exercise control to ensure or guarantee the integrity of/over the contents of the information contained in e-mail transmission and further acknowledge that any views expressed in this message are those of the individual sender and no binding nature of the message shall be implied or assumed unless the sender does so expressly with due authority of Centric Health.
