Adding a new patient

The patient's Chosen name is the name the patient prefers to use as a first name. Wolf EMR displays the chosen name in brackets whenever the patient name is displayed.

Click Alias to add patient aliases, such as maiden name, legal name, adopted name or tribal name. This alias is linked to the patient and can be searched but when you choose the alias name, the original person’s demographics or chart opens.

If you want to add an additional address, such as a summer home or business address, click Add another address. The EMR clears the address area, enabling you to enter a new address.

If this address is the patient’s primary address, select the Primary Address check box.

Green squares appear to the right of the address area, indicating how many addresses are entered for the patient and what address you are currently editing.

A sequence number and indicator indicates what address you are currently viewing. An X indicates the primary address. Green highlighting indicates an active address while grey highlighting indicates an inactive address.

To view the previous address, click the up arrow .

To view the next address, click the down arrow .

If the address is temporary until a certain date, enter an Up To date. The address will become inactive and will he hidden after this date unless you choose Options > Show Inactive Addresses. To restore the address, clear the field.

A patient must have an email address entered before you can register them for the patient portal. If you think it is likely that a patient will access the patient portal (for example, a patient with a chronic disease), record their email address.

If your clinic works in “teams” or “pods” of provider and/or employees to manage groups of patients, your clinic can create care teams in Wolf EMR. You can then assign a patient to a specific care team.

Before you can assign patients to care team, ensure that your Wolf EMR administrator has set up care teams. See Creating care teams.

You can enter multiple personal health numbers (PHN) if a patient is coming from another province. Previous PHNs are tracked using effective dates when the PHN is valid. The patient cannot have more than one active PHN per province.

Enter the patient’s provincial health number without any spaces. If the patient is an infant who does not yet have a PHN, enter the mother’s PHN.

If the province is not populated, select it from the list. After you enter the PHN and save and close the PHN editor window, the Billing Prov field in the patient maintenance is populated with the province you selected.

Enter an alternate identification (ID) from an assigning authority. A patient can have multiple alternate IDs.

Type the patient’s birthdate in the format day/month/year and press Enter on your keyboard. The patient’s Age is automatically calculated. You can display the patient’s age in months, weeks, or days

Administrators can program the EMR to generate a patient chart number each time a patient is added to the database. However, if the chart number is not populated, or you need to enter a paper chart number, you can manually enter the patient chart number. To populate the Chart number with the next available number, click Get Next (if available).

For example, you might have to enter a paper chart number if your clinic recently moved from paper charting to using an EMR. You must continue to pull paper charts of previous patients until they are scanned or entered into the EMR. If you currently use a number system for organizing charts, you need to be able to easily find this number when confirming and arriving a patient.

Enter additional identification (ID), such as a hospital ID.

Select if the patient is an infant who does not yet have a PHN.

When an infant is first born, usually the patient is allowed to be submitted under the mother's PHN for a short period of time until the baby gets its own PHN. Selecting this check box ensures that electronically submitted billing is designated with the mother's PHN.

As soon as the infant receives its own PHN, enter that number in the infant’s PHN field and clear this check box.

If pharmacies are set up in your EMR, indicate the patient’s main pharmacy. To search for a pharmacy, click next to the Pharmacy field.

If your clinic has multiple locations, indicate the patient’s preferred clinic location.

For specialist offices, identify the provider who referred the patient.

If the patient is referred by a consultant (specialist), in the Consultant On File area, in the Search By field, start typing the consultant’s last name and then press Enter. Select the consultant from the list. If the consultant is not on file, in the Consultant Not on File area, enter the consultant information in the Name and Phone fields.

If the patient is referred by a family practice physician, in the Family Practice Referral area, in the Search By field, start typing the physician’s last name and then press Enter. Select the physician from the list.

If the consultant or family practice physician is not on file, add them to the consultant list in the EMR (see External consultants).

To use the consultant physician or the family practice physician in billing as the default referring physician, select the Use in Billing as Default check box. Otherwise, your billing will be refused.

In the Notes field, type any patient custody information, such as “Mother has custody.” A gavel icon appears in the patient banner and displays the text if the patient is below the legal majority age for your province.

If applicable, record a patient's Login Name and Password for a third party application. Patient Access to 3rd Party Software