If you review a patient's chart and discover notes contain responses or demographic updates that seem incongruous to the patient, it's highly likely that the wrong patient made updates to another patient's chart.
How does this happen?
This circumstance primarily occurs with devices set to the "staff-initiated" tablet mode. In day-to-day use, accidental user error can occur when staff enter the wrong Ocean reference number into the tablet to unlock it for patient use.
A simply mix up with the reference numbers, for example, entering "132" instead of "123", can queue up a totally different patient than the one staff expect.
When the patient receives the tablet, more often than not, they simply change demographic fields that don't match their own without second thought.
How can I prevent this from happening?
We strongly suggest enabling birthdate validation on all "staff-initiated" devices. This helps ensure that if staff accidentally typo the Ocean reference number used to unlock the tablet, there is a second layer of validation shown directly to the patient to ensure they are the correct person.
Failing to input the correct birthdate will put an immediate halt to the tablet session and force the patient to return the device to the front desk for assistance. This gives staff the opportunity to review and re-enter the correct reference number into the Ocean Tablet application before returning it to the patient.
Enabling Birthday Validation
To turn on birthdate validation, navigate to the "Tablets" tab of the Ocean Portal. Click "Edit" on the applicable tablet group. In the window that opens, select "Introduction", check off "Use Birthday Validation", and finally click the blue "Save" button. (Repeat as necessary for other applicable groups.)