Merging Profiles on the Patient EDM

You can merge patient profiles that are found to represent the same patient and you can merge system records between patient profiles. During a system record merge, you can specify which fields from each record to retain in the final, merged system record. After a patient profile merge, all information from all the system records involved in the merge is stored in the surviving profile. You might need to review the final merge result profile to determine which, if any, system records should be deactivated.

The SBR for the surviving profile is determined by the survivor calculator, taking into account all system records involved in the merge. If you merge two profiles that have duplicate child objects (for example, each profile has an Office address) and the union survivor calculator is used, then the most recently modified of the two child objects is stored in the SBR.

Surviving and Non-surviving Profiles

When you perform a patient profile merge, you are working with two patient profiles. The non-surviving profile is the profile that is not retained after the merge. The surviving profile is retained after the merge. During a patient profile merge, the system records in the non-surviving profile are transferred to the surviving profile, and the non-surviving profile is given a status of “Merged”. The SBR for the surviving patient profile is recalculated based on the existing system records for that profile along with the newly merged system records. The EUID of the surviving profile is always retained. The information that is discarded during a merge is stored in the transaction table, making it possible to restore the profiles to their original EUIDs if they were merged in error.

System Record Merges

You can merge two system records together only if they originated from the same external system. The system records can belong to the same patient profile or each can belong to a different profile. When the merge includes two different patient profiles, the profile from which the system record is merged is called the merge from profile; the patient profile into which the system record is merged is called the merge to profile. If you merge the only active system record in one patient profile into a system record in a different patient profile, the merge from profile is deactivated (since there are no active system records remaining, there is nothing from which to create the SBR). During a system record merge, you can select fields from the non-surviving system record to be retained in the surviving system record.

Undoing a Merge

If you merge two patient profiles or system records in error, you can unmerge the profiles or records, moving the information back into the original patient profiles or system records. Any modifications that were made to the surviving patient profile or system record after the merge are retained after the profiles or records are unmerged. If a system record merge caused the “merge from” patient profile to be deactivated, unmerging the system records reactivates that profile.