Data Import

Kipu EMR offers flexible data import solutions to help you transition your current patient census into the platform efficiently and accurately. Whether you're coming from another EMR, paper records, or organized spreadsheets, this guide walks you through the two phases of getting your patients into Kipu.

Important — current census only: Kipu imports active patients only. Historical or discharged records should be retained in your legacy system or a secure backup for compliance. This ensures optimal performance, accurate reporting, and a clean start in your new environment.

The Two Phases of Data Import

Getting your patients into Kipu involves two distinct, sequential steps:

• Phase 1: Patient Chart Creation: Creating each patient's chart in Kipu with their demographics and clinical details (name, date of birth, admission date, level of care, etc.). You have two options for how to do this.
• Phase 2: PDF Document Attachment: Attaching the patient's current records as PDFs to the charts created in Phase 1. You have two options for how to do this as well.

Phase 2 cannot begin until Phase 1 is complete. PDFs must be attached to an existing patient chart with a unique identifier already in Kipu.

Must-Knows Before You Begin

To set clear expectations, Kipu does not:

• Import historical or inactive patients under any import option
• Clean, fix, or reformat your data files
• Merge or split multiple spreadsheets on your behalf
• Resolve conflicting values or mismatched list items
• Deduplicate patient data

You are responsible for ensuring your data is accurate, properly formatted, and ready for import before submission.

Phase 1: Patient Chart Creation

Each patient chart includes the following data:

Category	Fields
Census/Demographics	Name, Date of Birth, Social Security Number, Gender, Phone, Email, Street Address, Marital Status, Race, Insurance, Admission Date

Note: Clinical and Financial/RCM data (medications, insurance, claims, payments, etc.) are not currently supported for import.

Your Two Import Options

Option	Description
Option 1 - Template-Based Import	System-agnostic. You populate a Kipu Excel template and submit for import.
Option 2 - Manual Entry	Clean slate. Staff create each patient chart directly in the EMR. Typically the best option for fewer than 50 active census.

Option 1 — Template-Based Import

The most common path for organizations coming from other systems, paper records, or spreadsheets. Kipu provides a standard Excel (XLSX) workbook. You map your existing data to the template fields and submit for CSV conversion and final import.

Pros	Cons
System-agnostic — works regardless of your previous software	Labor-intensive; requires someone comfortable with Excel to clean and format data
Full control over which patients and data points are included	Formatting errors (wrong date format, invalid values) will cause import failures
Supports mass-attachment of chart PDFs via SFTP if files are organized correctly	Human error risk when re-keying or copying data
	Some data (e.g. appointments, medication orders) must be entered manually after import

Option 2 — Manual Entry

Start with a clean slate. Clinical and administrative staff manually create each patient chart in Kipu. A single PDF can be attached per patient as needed.

Pros	Cons
Cleanest possible start — prevents garbage in, garbage out	Resource-heavy for facilities with a large patient census
Great training opportunity — staff become power users building charts from scratch	Human error risk when re-keying data
No technical setup required — no SFTP, CSVs, or vendor extracts
Fastest to start — you can begin creating charts immediately

Which Option Is Right for You?

Once you've selected your Phase 1 option, proceed to Phase 2 below to determine how to handle documents.

Phase 2: PDF Document Attachment

After your patient charts exist in Kipu, you can attach each patient's prior records as PDFs. Use the decision tree below to choose your attachment method.

• SFTP PDF Upload: Ask Kipu to provide a secure SFTP folder. Inside it, create a separate folder for each patient named FIRSTNAME-LASTNAME-MR# (MR# must match the patient's MR number as entered into the EMR). All files must be in a single, merged PDF and under the maximum file size limit.
• Manual Attachment: One or more PDFs can be attached directly to the patient chart via an Attachment Evaluation inside Kipu.

Tip: If you don't have a clean single PDF per patient but still want prior records accessible, we recommend manually attaching a PDF of the previous chart as an attachment evaluation on the new admit chart. This keeps the record available without cluttering your database with unnecessary data.

Before You Start

• Data accuracy is your responsibility: Kipu does not clean, reformat, or fix data files. Errors, mismatched values, or formatting issues will cause import failures or incomplete records. Review all data carefully before submission.
• File limits and format requirements: Template-based imports are limited to approximately 1,000 rows per file. Suppose you have more than 1,000 active patients, split across multiple templates. All record files to be attached must be in PDF format, following the exact folder structure provided.
• System downtime is required during import: During the CSV import window, no one should be using your Kipu instance. This prevents data conflicts and ensures a clean import.
• Kipu Data Lists: Programs, levels of care, race, ethnicity, marital status, payers, and similar list fields must be configured in Kipu and must match your spreadsheet entries exactly, or records may be skipped or assigned incorrectly.
• Single Episode of Care: Kipu treats a single episode of care as one patient chart per admission and discharge. A single episode of care is imported per patient and cannot contain a discharge date to be considered current census.
• One-time service: Import is offered as a one-time implementation service. If an update needs to be made to the originally submitted import data, this may come at an additional charge.

Getting Started

Once you have selected your Phase 1 option and Phase 2 attachment method, Kipu will guide you through the specific steps, provide templates or SFTP credentials as needed, and support you through verification and go-live.

Frequently Asked Questions

• No. While some people choose to keep their current EMR for functionality or service reasons, many people make a change in EMR just to get a clean start with their data. If you're not confident in your data integrity – its accuracy, its relevancy, etc. – then we recommend that you do not start with a data import and instead, enter your data directly into Kipu.

  Note
  If you want to transfer information from an existing Kipu instance into a different Kipu instance, this is not considered a data import. Please see the section below for more information.

• Census/Demographics & Contact Information	Documents (PDFs)	Clinical Data Elements (Kipu does not currently support the import of this data)	Financial/RCM Data (Kipu does not currently support the import of this data)
  Name Street Address Date of Birth Social Security Number Marital Status Gender Phone Email Race Insurance Admission Date	Uploaded as attachments	Level of care Medications MAT Orders Insurance Authorizations Discharge Disposition Care Team	Claims Insurance Payments/adjustments Client Payments

• System performance — A leaner database means faster searches, more accurate reporting, and better overall performance.

  Data integrity — It is significantly easier to verify 100 active patient files than 5,000 archived ones. Focusing on current census ensures data entering Kipu is clean and actionable.

  User adoption — A current-census environment prevents staff from seeing multiple historical records when searching for one active chart, improving confidence and efficiency.

  Compliance — You still meet 7-year retention obligations as long as you maintain a secure, searchable archive of your previous system's data. Kipu is your live clinical environment; your archive is your compliance safety net.

• Most legacy data does not map cleanly to Kipu's reporting fields. You'll get more reliable analytics by keeping legacy reports in a local backup and starting Kipu reporting with a clean, verified dataset.
• Your legal obligation is record retention — keeping data for 7 years — not active migration into your daily workspace. Maintain a secure archive of your previous system while keeping Kipu optimized for current operations.
• We recommend manually attaching a PDF of the previous chart as an attachment evaluation onto the new admit chart. This keeps the record available without cluttering your database with unnecessary historical data.

• PDF file imports must take place after the patient already exists in Kipu and has a unique identifier. Ask Kipu to provide a secure SFTP folder to you. In the SFTP folder, create a separate folder for each patient called "FIRSTNAME-LASTNAME-MR#" (MR# can be replaced with another unique identifier if applicable).

  Alternatively, these PDFs can be manually attached to the chart via an Attachment Evaluation.