Which EMR demographics are not automatically updated by Ocean?

Protected Fields

While Ocean allows patients to update their demographic information through Ocean eForms, there are certain protected fields across all EMRs that will not be automatically updated by Ocean as a safety precaution. These fields are:

  • First Name
  • Surname
  • Health Number
  • Birth Date
  • Sex

These fields are considered patient identifiers which should rarely or never change. As a result, changes to these fields warrant a manual review by clinic staff to ensure that the change is intentional. An exception to this is if the protected field in question is initially blank. In that case, the new information would populate into the field as expected.

In the case of a patient requesting a change to one of the fields listed above, Ocean does not update the protected field directly; however, an additional Ocean note is generated in the patient chart noting the change request. This indicates to clinic staff that a manual review and update is required in order to change the demographic fields in the chart. An example of such a note is provided below.

PS Suite Med Access Accuro OSCAR

Updating Other Fields in the Patient Record

The ability to automatically update other fields in the patient record, including the cumulative patient profile, varies by EMR. For additional information on the behaviour of specific fields within an EMR, please see the support articles below.

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