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Bulk create patient records

As a team coordinator, as an initial onboarding step, you might want to create multiple patient records in one go. The ‘Add many patients’ feature allows you to upload a CSV file with a list of patients. PKB will then create records for all patients and carers and add them to your team.

How do I create the CSV file to upload?

Complete the following template:

'Add many patients' CSV template'

Do not change the layout or remove the header row or the upload will fail.

Add one row per patient. All cells should be text - if you have identifiers or phone numbers beginning with 0 please ensure the cells in these columns are not being treated numerically as the 0 will automatically be removed. Make sure to save it as a CSV file e.g. not in Excel format. CSV files will have a file extension of .csv whereas Excel files normally have a file extension of .xlsx

Please also perform a data cleanse to account for special characters that could throw off standard CSV parsing such as , " '.

Include up to 50,000 patients in each file. Let PKB support know if you are planning a large upload. We will give guidance on when to upload each file.

Mandatory columns:

First name
Last name
and at least one type of id: National Identifier, Organisation Identifier, Team Identifier

Please note, patient identifiers must be unique to the patient. The Organisation Identifier is the unique ID assigned to the patient by the organisation (rather than the ID of the organisation). Likewise, the Team identifier is the unique ID assigned to the patient by the team, rather than being the ID of the team.

Optional columns:

Title - patient's title e.g. Mr
E-mail - e-mail address of the patient. If provided an invitation to register will be sent to the patient.
DoB (DD, MM, YYYY ) e.g. 21, 04, 1999 - recommended
Address1 - first line of the postal address
Address2 - second line of the postal address
City
State/Province/County
Post code
Mobile number
Home number
Work number
Other number
Carer1 first name
Carer1 last name
Carer1 E-mail - an email address of a carer of the patient. If provided an invitation to register will be sent to the carer.
Carer2 first name
Carer2 last name
Carer2 E-mail - If provided an invitation to register will be sent to the carer.

If you are uploading patients who you know already have PKB accounts (for example, they have been created under an umbrella team and you are now adding them to a specific team) we recommend only including the mandatory fields in your CSV file. This will prevent you overwriting demographic details which the umbrella team have already added.

How do I start the upload?

Go to ‘Patients’ and click ‘Add many patients’. ‘Choose file’ and browse to attach your completed CSV file

Select the privacy labels that your team requires access to provide care for these patients (your team’s default access will be pre-selected). Click on the ‘Add patients’ button to start the patient creation.

If you get an error indicating that the file format is incorrect (see example below), please check you are using the correct template supplied, and that neither the format (CSV) or the header has been modified in any way. Click 'Cancel' and start the upload process again.

How can I monitor the progress of the upload?

Once the upload has begun you will see an entry on the 'Reports' sub tab. When the upload completes you will receive an email notification and the entry on the 'Reports' tab will have a download link.

You can download the report to see detailed status of each patient record. It will contain your original data with three additional columns showing whether the patient on each row (and carers if included) have been successfully invited/created, with supporting information where relevant.

The possible account creation outcomes are:

(Click here to see the details on how PKB matches patient records)

Success - <New account created> - patient record created successfully and added to your team.
Success - <Patient already in your team> - this patient record already existed in your team.
Success - <Existing patient added to your team> - this patient record already existed in your organisation, the patient has been added to your team.
Success - <Existing patient has been invited to share records with your team> - this patient record already existed outside your organisation. They have been sent an invitation to your team and will be added once they acknowledge.
Failure - <Details: This account belongs to existing user XXXXX with Dob XXXX-XX-XX> - patient record exists with this National Identifier or Organisation ID and has no email address added
Failure - <Must have at least one type of id (national, org level or team level id)> You must provide an ID for this patient.
Failure - <Unable to invite patient as existing account without email - Please contact St Elsewhere Hospital for access> - patient record exists in another organisation but there is no email added for this record. For more details and how to action this see Patient records created in another organisation
Failure - <Invalid NHS number 'XXX XXX XXXX'>. An invalid NHS number was provided.
Failure - <Invalid email 'lesley.harris.pkbtest.com'>.An invalid email address was provided.
Failure - <Missing mandatory column: 'First name';Missing mandatory column: 'Last name';Must have at least one type of id (national, org level or team level id)>. Missing mandatory fields.
Failure - <This account belongs to existing user. Details: email 'test@pkbtest.com' and NHS number XXXXXXXXXX belong to different PKB patients> - a patient exists with this email and another patient exists with this NHS number.
Failure - <This account belongs to existing user. Details: Patient record exists with this email address and a different National Identifier or Organisation ID> - a patient already exists in PKB with this email address but a different national ID or organisation ID.

The possible carer creation outcomes are:

Carer successfully invited - a carer for this patient account created and invited
Unable to invite carer 'gary.nell.com': Record 3 (Graham Nell): invalid email: 'gary.nell.com' - patient and carer account not created because carer email address format is invalid
Unable to invite carer 'bill.individual@pkbtest.com': Unexpected error happened: email bill.individual@pkbtest.com is associated with multiple persons! - This email address is already in use by a PKB user. The patient account will be created but the carer will not be added to this patient record.

What is sent to the patient when their account is created?

When your patients have had their accounts successfully created via the CSV upload, PKB will send an email to them to ask them to complete registration.

Which email is sent to them depends on whether they already had an existing record, or belonged to another team within your organisation etc, but we have added some examples below.

Scenario 1 - Patient record created successfully and added to your team

If the patient does not already have a PKB record, we create one for them and send the following email:

Scenario 2 - Patient already has a PKB record and is already in your team

If the patient is already part of your team, we will resend the invitation email (if they have not completed registration). If the patient has registered, we will not send any additional email.

For scenario 3 and scenario 4 the email templates sent will tell the patient what privacy access the team has gained access to or requested access to.

If a team has access to no privacy labels the following text will be in the emails:

If the team has requested some privacy access, the email makes this clear for the patient. For example, if you request general health, mental health and social health, the email will read:

Scenario 3 - Patient record already existed in your organisation and has now been added to your team

The email template differs depending on which privacy labels have been requested for access (see note above scenario 3).

Scenario 3a: If the patient already has a PKB record and is registered, and that record already existed in your organisation we send the following email:

Scenario 3b: If the patient already has a PKB record but is not registered, and the record already existed in your organisation we send them two emails. The first is an invitation to register (see scenario 1). The second email invites them to your team (see scenario 3b) and includes text to remind them to register:

Scenario 4 - Patient already has a PKB record but is outside of your organisation or organisation network

The email template differs depending on which privacy labels have been requested for access (see note above scenario 3).

Scenario 4a: If the patient already has a PKB record and is registered we send them an email to invite them to your team:

If this patient has a carer, the carer will also receive an email notifying them of the patient's invitation, which will allow them to accept the invitation on the patient's behalf. If they do this, the coordinator who performed the bulk upload will receive an email notifying them of this acceptance.

Scenario 4b: If the patient already has a PKB record and is not registered we send them two emails. The first is an invitation to register (see scenario 1). The second email invites them to your team (see scenario 4a) but includes text to remind them to register:

If the unregistered patient has a carer, the carer will also receive an email notifying them of the patient's invitation, which will allow them to accept the invitation on the patient's behalf. If they do this, the coordinator who performed the bulk upload will receive an email notifying them of this acceptance.

What happens if I upload incorrect patient details?

If you upload a file that contains incorrect information (for example, an older version of a file) you should upload the correct file as soon as possible. The new file will overwrite the previous file you uploaded, and so will update demographic details such as name, address and date of birth.

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