> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://help.clinikehr.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Register and find patients

> Create a patient record, search the list, import in bulk, and work the self-registration waitlist at a hospital front desk.

export const AuditNote = ({action = 'This action'}) => <div className="ck-callout ck-callout--info" role="note">
    <p className="ck-callout__body">
      {action} is written to your workspace's audit log with your name, the
      record touched and the time — a HIPAA requirement, and one you can review
      yourself under <strong>Audit Log</strong>. See{' '}
      <a href="/platform/security/audit-log">Audit log</a>.
    </p>
  </div>;

export const StillStuck = ({topic}) => <div className="ck-callout ck-callout--note" role="note">
    <p className="ck-callout__body">
      <strong>Still stuck{topic ? ` with ${topic}` : ''}?</strong>{' '}
      Check <a href="/platform/help/troubleshooting">Troubleshooting</a> first —
      it covers the failures we see most often. If that does not resolve it,{' '}
      <a href="/platform/help/contact-support">contact support</a> and include
      your workspace name and the time the problem happened, so we can find the
      matching entry in your audit log.
    </p>
  </div>;

export const TaskHeader = ({before, time, after}) => <div className="ck-task">
    {before ? <div className="ck-task__cell">
        <div className="ck-task__title">Before you start</div>
        <p className="ck-task__body">{before}</p>
      </div> : null}

    {time ? <div className="ck-task__cell">
        <div className="ck-task__title">Takes about</div>
        <p className="ck-task__body">{time}</p>
      </div> : null}

    {after ? <div className="ck-task__cell">
        <div className="ck-task__title">When you're done</div>
        <p className="ck-task__body">{after}</p>
      </div> : null}
  </div>;

export const Path = ({steps = []}) => <span className="ck-path">
    {steps.map((s, i) => <span key={i} className="ck-path__step">
        {i > 0 ? <span className="ck-path__sep" aria-hidden="true">
            ›
          </span> : null}
        {s}
      </span>)}
  </span>;

export const Availability = ({editions = ['all'], plans, roles, note}) => {
  const list = editions.includes('all') ? ['clinic', 'pharmacy', 'lims'] : editions;
  return <div className="ck-avail" role="note" aria-label="Feature availability">
      <span className="ck-avail__label">Available in</span>

      {list.map(e => <span key={e} className={`ck-pill ck-pill--${e}`}>
          {EDITION_LABELS[e] || e}
        </span>)}

      {plans ? <span className="ck-avail__label">Plan</span> : null}
      {plans ? <span className="ck-pill ck-pill--plan">{plans}</span> : null}

      {roles ? <span className="ck-avail__label">Who</span> : null}
      {roles ? <span className="ck-pill ck-pill--role">{roles}</span> : null}

      {note ? <span className="ck-avail__note">{note}</span> : null}
    </div>;
};

<Availability editions={['clinic']} plans="Enterprise" roles="Front desk and records staff; editing is role-gated" note="Needs the Front desk or Records care area" />

Everything downstream — triage, consultation, admission, dispensing, billing — starts from a patient record. This is the screen where one is created and found.

<Path steps={['Sidebar', 'Front Desk', 'Patients']} />

<TaskHeader before="Nothing — this is usually the first record a hospital creates" time="A minute to register someone" after="A patient record the whole hospital can work from" />

## Before you start

The list is reachable from **two** sidebar rows: **Front Desk → Patients** and **Records → Patient Records**. Open either and **both highlight at once**. That is correct, not a fault — reception registers patients and the records office manages them, but there is only one patient list, so both service lines get a door onto it. Each door depends on its own care area: **Front desk** for one, **Records** for the other. See [Care areas](/hospital/get-started/care-areas).

## What you're looking at

The page is headed **Patients Management** — "Register, view, and manage patient records across your clinic".

Six stat cards run across the top:

| Card                | Counts                               | Period         |
| ------------------- | ------------------------------------ | -------------- |
| **Total Patients**  | "Registered in your clinic"          | All time       |
| **New Patients**    | Newly registered                     | "Last 30 days" |
| **Active Patients** | "With recent activity"               | Recent         |
| **Consultations**   | Consultations recorded               | "Last 30 days" |
| **Triages**         | Triage records taken                 | "Last 30 days" |
| **Top Blood Type**  | "Most common" across your population | All time       |

Two tabs follow. **All Patients** is the list. **Analytics** breaks your population down under **Gender Distribution**, **Age Distribution**, **Country Distribution** and **Chronic Conditions** — plain counted lists rather than charts, useful when a service line is arguing for a clinic and needs to know who actually attends.

The page header carries **Refresh**, **Import**, **Export** and **New Patient**. **Columns** is not up there: it sits on the table itself, beside the search box, and opens a **Visible Columns** list.

The table shows **Patient ID**, **Full Name**, **Category**, **Age**, **Gender**, **Phone**, **Nationality**, **Consultations** and **Last Visit** by default. **Blood Type**, **Occupation**, **Country**, **Email**, **Genotype**, **Triages**, **Lab Tests** and **Prescriptions** are available under **Columns**. Every heading sorts.

The row **⋯** menu offers **View details**, **Edit** for staff who may edit, and **Send Consent** — plus **Approve request** and **Decline request** on a waitlist row.

### What a brand-new hospital sees

Not a blank table but **Your patient registry is empty**, with three ways forward: **Explore with sample patients** ("About 60 seconds · nothing is saved to your clinic"), **Import patients** and **Add your first patient**. The footer is a promise worth reading: "We never auto-create patient records on your behalf."

Inside the sample tour everything is badged **Sample mode**, with the amber line "Sample data — just browsing changes nothing." A sample patient becomes real only when you select **Add \{name} to my clinic**.

## Register a patient

<Steps>
  <Step title="Select New Patient">
    From the page header. The form collects the identity and contact details the rest of the hospital will read.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Get the name and date of birth right">
    Take the time at the counter. Every clinician after you searches on them, and a mistyped name is how one person ends up with two charts.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Save">
    The patient appears in **All Patients** and is immediately available to triage, appointments and admissions.
  </Step>
</Steps>

## Find and open a record

Search with **Search patients...**, then select the row to open it, or use the **⋯** menu. **View details** opens the record; **Edit** changes it; **Send Consent** sends a consent document to the patient. Below a wide screen the table becomes cards showing the phone, gender, age, blood type and last consultation, with an **Admitted** badge where it applies.

## Work the self-registration waitlist

Patients who register themselves do not go straight onto your list. They arrive as requests behind the **Waitlist** toggle on the table.

<Steps>
  <Step title="Filter to the waitlist">
    Select **Waitlist**. It tints amber while it is on; select it again to clear it.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Read the request">
    Check it is a real person and not a duplicate of someone you already hold.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Decide about the portal, deliberately">
    **Approve request** opens **Approve patient request** — "Activate \{name} from the waitlist." It carries an **Enable client portal access** checkbox: "Lets them sign in via magic link to view records, book appointments, and message your team."

    It arrives **already ticked**, and it re-ticks itself every time the dialog opens. Creating a record and giving someone a login are two different decisions, and the second is the one with a security consequence — clear the box for anyone who should be on your list but not signing in.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Approve or decline">
    **Approve** confirms it; you will see either "Client approved and portal access enabled" or plain "Client approved", which is how you check what you actually granted. **Decline request** archives it — "This does not notify the requester."
  </Step>
</Steps>

## Import and export

**Import** takes an existing list in bulk, which is how most hospitals arrive. **Export** takes it out again, and is greyed out while you have no patients. Check a handful of imported records by hand before you rely on the batch — a column mapped to the wrong field is far cheaper to catch at ten records than at ten thousand.

## Who can do this

| Action                             | Who by default                            | Governed by                                                   |
| ---------------------------------- | ----------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------- |
| Open the list                      | Almost every clinical and front-desk role | Role Navigation + the **Front desk** or **Records** care area |
| View a patient record              | Anyone who can open the list              | Role                                                          |
| Register, edit, approve or decline | Clinical, front-desk and management roles | Role — a fixed list, not a permission slug                    |
| Import and export                  | Anyone who can open the list              | Role                                                          |

There are no permission slugs on this page, so no figure renders as a dash and no column silently disappears — what changes with your role is whether **Edit** and the two waitlist actions appear in the **⋯** menu, and whether selecting a row opens it for editing or only for reading.

Two behaviours worth knowing. Permission enforcement elsewhere in the product is **opt-in per person**, and the permissions sheet warns **"Saving starts enforcing"**. And a denied action is recorded in the audit log while an allowed one is not — hiding a module in [Role Navigation](/hospital/settings/role-navigation) is a convenience, not a security boundary.

If your hospital restricts sections by role, a role without this page sees "You don't have access to this page" and is told to ask an administrator.

<AuditNote action="Opening a patient record" />

## Check it worked

* The new patient appears in **All Patients** and can be found by name.
* **Total Patients** has gone up by one.
* They appear in the picker at [triage](/hospital/outpatient/triage) once a consultation has been paid for.
* An approved waitlist request has left the **Waitlist** filter and joined the main list.
* Someone you approved with the portal box cleared cannot sign in to the portal — which is what you intended.

## Common issues

<AccordionGroup>
  <Accordion title="Both Patients and Patient Records are highlighted">
    Expected. They are two doors onto one list — one for reception, one for the records office.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="Everything is read-only and there is no Edit">
    Editing is role-gated, and a user without an editing role gets the read-only view with no error to explain it. Selecting a row opens it in view mode too. Ask an owner or manager to check your role — see [Roles](/platform/team/roles).
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="A patient I registered is not at triage">
    Almost always the consultation payment. The triage picker only lists patients who have paid, unless your hospital runs in Free Clinic Mode.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="An approved patient cannot sign in to the portal">
    The **Enable client portal access** box was cleared at approval — or ticked when you meant to clear it. The success message tells you which happened. Grant or revoke access from their record.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="New Patient is greyed out">
    You have reached your plan's patient limit. Hovering shows the upgrade card. See [Change your plan](/platform/plans/change-plan).
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="My import brought in the wrong data">
    Export the list, correct it outside the product, and import the corrected file. Fix the column mapping before you re-run a large batch.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="There is no Patients entry in my sidebar">
    Both doors depend on care areas — **Front desk** for **Patients**, **Records** for **Patient Records**. See [Care areas](/hospital/get-started/care-areas).
  </Accordion>
</AccordionGroup>

## FAQ

<AccordionGroup>
  <Accordion title="Does the sample tour create real patients?">
    No. Everything in **Sample mode** is fictional and nothing is saved, audited or counted against your plan unless you explicitly select **Add \{name} to my clinic**.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="Why does the portal checkbox say 'client' on a hospital?">
    That one label is fixed across every plan and edition. It does the same thing: it gives the patient a portal login.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="What is the difference between a waitlist request and a contact?">
    A waitlist request is someone asking to become a patient of yours. A [contact](/hospital/front-desk/contacts) is a pre-clinical enquiry that may never become one. Approving a request creates a patient record; a contact does not.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="Can I delete a patient?">
    Clinical records are retained rather than deleted — that is a regulatory requirement, not a product limitation. Decline a waitlist request before it becomes a patient, and speak to support about anything already registered.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="Do the Analytics figures include waitlist requests?">
    No. Analytics counts registered patients. Someone on the waitlist is not a patient until you approve them.
  </Accordion>
</AccordionGroup>

<StillStuck topic="patient records" />