Contents
Confidential records are text, notes, orders, reports or other documents that you do not want to share with patients or anyone you are collaborating with to care for your patient outside of your practice. Confidential records in the patient's chart consists of:
- a Confidential section in the Clinical Profile that allows you to document and store confidential and private notes for the patient that can only be seen by members of your office. Notes in the Confidential section will never be printed, will not be visible in Passport and will not be shared outside of your practice when you attach the Clinical Profile to any Provider Letters or Referral Orders.
- ability to mark any record/document in the patient's chart as 'Confidential' to allow any member of your practice to take caution when sharing the record/document outside of your practice.
- Important Note: The “Keep as confidential” checkbox on visit notes is intended to call attention to visit notes marked as confidential to ensure that confidential visit notes are only shared explicitly (and not implicitly) with third parties (other than the patients) via features like Letters or Referral Orders — it does not impact which, and how, visit notes are shared with patients via Passport. A signed visit note will always be shared with the patient as a visit summary via Passport, whether the note is marked confidential or not, and those visit summaries include the information documented in the following sections of the visit note:
- Vitals
- Plan (*SOAP Visit Note Format only)
- Proc (Procedure)
- Tests/Treatments
- This includes any Referrals, medications and diagnostic test orders.
- Care Plan (Instructions)
- F/U (Follow-up)
It is important to separate confidential records to allow you to confidently share only records you want to share with anyone outside of your practice.
- Notes in the Confidential section of the Clinical Profile will never be printed or shared outside of your practice.
- If you mark a record as 'Confidential, that record will always have a special indicator that can be seen from anywhere in the patient's chart- this will allow members of your practice to take caution when printing or sharing the record
- If you mark a record as 'Confidential, that record will not be shared when you generate C-CDA (CCDA) files for the patient
Confidential section of the Clinical Profile
Every patient chart has a Confidential section in the Clinical Profile section of their chart. The Confidential section is at the very bottom of the Clinical Profile. Any information added to this Confidential section by any member of your practice:
- can be viewed and edited by anyone in your practice
- will never be printed or shared whenever you print the Clinical Profile or share the Clinical Profile through Patient Passport or Letter/Referral
- will never be exported when exporting the contents of the patient chart as a C-CDA (CCDA) file
- will never be shared with or visible to other providers using the Patient Longitudinal Record or Collaborative Health Record features (if you are using these features).
Marking records as confidential
Any member of your practice can mark any notes, orders, reports or documents as 'Confidential' in the patient's chart. To mark records as confidential:
- Use the "Keep this confidential" checkbox at the bottom of notes and orders
- Click the "Action" >> "Mark Confidential" button next to any signed notes, orders, reports or documents
If you need to remove the 'Confidential' marker on any record, click "Actions" >> "Unmark Confidential".
Important Note: Letters, referrals, prescriptions and office messages cannot be marked as 'Confidential' using this feature.
To withhold confidential or sensitive information from patients for patient safety reasons, we recommend using the Confidential section of the Clinical Profile.
The “Keep this confidential” checkbox on documents is intended to call attention to records marked as confidential to ensure that these confidential records are only shared explicitly (and not implicitly) with patients when sharing records via Patient Letters; with the exception of visit notes. The confidential checkbox on visit notes does not impact which visit notes are shared with patients via Passport. Visit summaries for all signed visit notes are always automatically shared with Patient Passport Users regardless of whether or not the visit note is marked as confidential, and those visit summaries include the information documented in the following sections of the visit note:
- Vitals
- Plan (*SOAP Visit Note Format only)
- Proc (Procedure)
- Tests/Treatments
- This includes any Referrals, medications and diagnostic test orders.
- Care Plan (Instructions)
- F/U (Follow-up)
The Collaborative View and Patient Longitudinal Record (PLR) are special features used by large groups of Elation users who are part of the same geographic location or Enterprise.
By marking certain records as 'Confidential' in your patient's chart, you will be able to withhold the data within those records and prevent the records from being seen by collaborating providers.
Important Note: Only records that are automatically shared through these features (visit notes, non-visit notes, reports, and orders) can be marked as 'Confidential'. Anything marked 'Confidential' can still be manually shared via Letters or Referrals but you will see a 'Confidential' marker on the record to allow you review the record before choosing to share it outside of your practice.
Can I set it so that only specific members of my practice can edit 'Confidential' information and records?
The 'Confidential' feature can be used by both staff and provider and you cannot set it so that only specific members of your practice can use this feature. Elation has a
VIP Charts feature that will give you more control over who in your office has access to patient records. Please feel free to explore the
VIP Charts feature.
Can I set it so that only specific members of my practice can view 'Confidential' information and records?
'Confidential' information and records can be seen by anyone that has access to your Elation EHR practice. You can set additional security around chart access using the
VIP Charts feature. Please feel free to explore the
VIP Charts Guide to learn more about the feature.
Why can't I mark letters, referrals, prescriptions and office messages as 'Confidential'?
This feature is not available in Elation at this time. Elation will notify you when this feature becomes available.
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