Why are new admissions not following the normal Medical Record Number sequence? How do I change our Medical Record Number (MR #) sequence?

Issue

This issue occurs when an MR Number is manually edited on a patient's/client's facesheet, changing the sequence set up under the Settings > Company.

Environment

Kipu EMR, Settings > Company, Role: Super Admin

Resolution

To verify when/where the changes started and to find the charts that need updating, pull a report of your recent admissions. Once you have that report, you can change the out-of-sequence MR numbers manually so that they follow the correct order. Once the last number lines up with the correct sequence, the Kipu EMR will continue with the correct numbers.

To update your facility's MR number sequence follow these steps.

1. Select your initials in the top right corner and go to Settings.
   
2. Select the Company tab.
   
3. Select the Edit pencil for the location that you want to update.
   
4. You can change the MR format, MR prefix, and MR suffix to customize how your Medical Record Numbers appear on your patient/client facesheets.
   
   • The options in the MR format drop-down are Increment and Year-counter.
     
     • Increment: The MR numbers will go up incrementally for each admission to your facility.
     • Year-counter: MR numbers will start with the year and then go up incrementally for each admission to your facility
   • The MR prefix is generally used when you want to differentiate between locations at a glance. All patients/clients admitted at that location will show that prefix followed by the MR format you have chosen (for example, CGTC-2023-14).
   • The MR suffix works the same as the prefix but appears after the number.

Cause

This issue is the result of a user manually typing in the MR number on a patient/client chart that is bigger than the number which should have been next in the sequence. The system then incorrectly picked up the numbering sequence from the manually added number.

Example
Using the MR number format of year-counter and an MR prefix.
Our last correctly admitted patient/client had the MR number CGTC-2023-14.
The next admitted patient/client was given the MR number CGTC-2023-15 but then there were more numbers added, resulting in CGTC-2023-1538543545335.
As a result, the patient/client admitted after that will have the number CGTC-2023-1538543545336, and so on.