Emergency access

In an emergency, part of a patient's record can read as held: data the patient has partitioned from your site, or a category your site marks as sensitive. Emergency access opens that detail for the patient in front of you, records why you opened it, and passes the entry to a reviewer afterwards.

Emergency access is a defined path that opens held detail in urgent care, logged with your name, the time and your stated reason. It runs inside the patient's admission at your site. Where the patient has an active visit here, you reach the record as usual and emergency access widens that read. Where the patient has no active visit here, you see basic identification, and admitting them in Gate is what opens the record.

Open held detail

1. 1

   Find the patient

   In Atlas, search for the patient you need to reach.

   Expected: the patient appears in the results.

   If the patient is absent, confirm the spelling or the identifier and search again.

2. 2

   Choose emergency access

   Open the record. Where a partition or a sensitivity marking holds part of it closed, select Emergency access.

   Expected: Pensieve asks you to confirm who you are.

   If the option is absent, either the record already opens to you in full or the patient has no active visit at this site. Check the visit in Gate.

3. 3

   Confirm your PIN

   Type your PIN to confirm it is you.

   Expected: Pensieve asks for your reason.

   If the PIN returns you to the prompt, enter it again slowly.

4. 4

   State your reason

   Write your reason in your own words in the Reason field.

   Expected: the Open record control becomes available.

   If the field holds you, add a short line that says why the record is needed now.

5. 5

   Open the record

   Select Open record.

   Expected: the held detail opens for a bounded window of four hours.

   If the window closes while you work, open emergency access again and state your reason again.

What it records

Each emergency access writes a clear entry. It names you, the record you reached, the moment, and the reason you wrote.

This entry sits in the access log alongside every other access to the record.

Who reviews it

A reviewer reads emergency access entries after the fact. The reason you wrote is what they read, so write it plainly and in full. The review clock runs for 72 hours from the moment the window opens.

The patient sees the fact of the override in their own access log, with the hospital, the time, the purpose and the outcome. Your name and your written reason stay with the hospital, for the reviewer.

When the window closes

The window ends on its own. The detail it opened closes with it, and you carry on with the record your role and your care relationship reach. Where care still needs that detail, open emergency access again and state your reason again.

Read the fields each entry keeps in the access log.