This article explains how to run queries to search for inactive or duplicate patients that may need to be deactivated in Bp Premier, including marking multiple patients in bulk inactive from the Database Search function.
Patient records marked as inactive or deceased do not appear for selection in patient lists, unless the Show inactive patients or Show deceased patients filters are ticked.
In this article:
Search for and deactivate bulk patients
Mark a single patient as inactive
Mark a single patient as deceased
Distinguishing inactive patients
In the Open Patient and Allocate Patient screens, inactive and deceased patients are highlighted with a pink background to distinguish the record from active patients when the Show inactive patients filter is ticked. This helps prevent reports being allocated to inactive patients, for example.
Search for duplicate patients
Several queries are supplied with Bp Premier to search for patient records with the same first name and surname. The search is case-insensitive.
- Select Utilities > Search to open the Database Search screen.
- Click Load query from the right hand buttons.
- In the Windows file explorer, browse to C:\Program Files\Best Practice Software\BPS\SuppliedQueries\Demographics.
- Select one of the supplied queries:
Duplicated active patients with matching Surname and Firstname
Returns all active patients with a surname and first name that match.
Duplicated Patients with matching Surname and Firstname
Returns all deceased, inactive, and active patients with a surname and first name that match.
Duplicated patients by dob, name
Returns all active patients with a surname, first name, and date of birth that match. Run this query if your practice has patients that share the same name, for example, two different patients called 'John Smith'.
- Click Open to load the query.
- From Database Search, click Run query. Any matching patients will be returned.
- Note the patient names with duplicates. You may wish to use the Patient Merge tool or mark one of the records as inactive.
Search for and deactivate bulk patients
You can only mark bulk patients as inactive from a Database search; you can't reactivate patients this way. If you accidentally mark patients as inactive, you will have to manually reactivate each patient from their demographics.
NOTE The query 'Active patients who have not had a visit in the last 12 months and have no future appointments and not created in the last 6 months' is only supplied if your practice has upgraded to Jade SP2. If you're running an earlier version, download the query 'Active patients no visits no appts.sql' here, and browse to that file in step 3.
- Select Utilities > Search to open the Database Search screen.
- Click Load query from the right hand buttons.
- In the Windows file explorer, browse to C:\Program Files\Best Practice Software\BPS\SuppliedQueries\Demographics.
- Select the query 'Active patients who have not had a visit in the last 12 months and have no future appointments and not created in the last 6 months'.
- Click Open to load the query.
- From Database Search, you can edit some of the values in the query to tweak your search. Adjust the values indicated below in the SQL Query text box, for example, to search over the last 24 months instead of 12.
- Click Run query. Any matching patients will be returned.
- Select File > Mark as inactive from the menu. Bp Premier will prompt you to confirm.
- Click Yes to confirm. Bp Premier will report the number of patients marked as inactive. Click Ok to finish.
- If you adjusted the query and want to run it again in the future, click Save query and save your modified query under a different filename. You can reload your custom query at any time.
Mark a single patient as inactive
If a patient is no longer considered 'active' according to your practice's guidelines, tick Inactive on the patient's demographics. Untick the Inactive checkbox to reactivate the patient record for use in Bp Premier.
Mark a single patient as deceased
If a patient is deceased, tick Deceased in the lower right in patient demographics, select the Date of death, and click Cause to select a cause of death from the supplied list.
IMPORTANT Marking a patient as deceased will not automatically remove the patient from Bp Comms bulk message lists, such as clinical or appointment reminders. Best Practice Software recommend removing consent for all Bp Comms message types as part of your clinic's workflow for marking patients as deceased. Instructions on how to do this are included in Get started with Bp Comms. Automatic removal of a deceased patient from Bp Comms messages may be included in a future release of Bp Premier.
