Spine Differences (Mythbusting)

⚠️ Myth: "When you see 'Spine Patient Record Differences' window, check what's in the demographics box (top-right) and click the options that match these."

If you see pop up titled 'Spine Patient Record Differences', never look at or "check" the top-right of SystmOne.

You are being shown (left) the details you already hold in SystmOne and (right) the details held on the NHS Spine that are updated by all Spine-connected services.

When you see this prompt and are with the patient or they are on the phone, you must ask the patient to verify the information (name/phone/address etc), then select the correct item or items, then click Ok to confirm.

There may be occasions where you can select the correct item without the patient's help, such as below where the number held by surgery (left) has incorrect characters (brackets) but the number is the same on both sides. To correct this, click the valid entry (will highlight in blue) then click Ok and ensure you save the record when finished with the patient, even if prompted about a blank entry in the record.

All Spine-connected services have a responsibilty to complete this process. If this work is not completed, data held by the surgery or the rest of healthcare will remain incorrect, potentially leading to delays in care and your colleagues will have to do this later. It is common for unfair amounts of this work to end up with Secretaries as they cannot refer patients without the differences being resolved. They will be understandably... "frustrated"... if the patient has already been spoken to or seen by several people in the surgery and this was not done at the time.

? Note; This is not a "SystmOne thing", it has been a requirement of all care services since Spine connectsions were introduced. It is everyone's responsibility in an organisation to ensure personal data is accurate (Data Protection Act 2018).