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Help › Importing your past cases › Check for duplicates

Check for duplicates

In short. Under Settings → Remove duplicate cases, tap Check for duplicates to see a reviewable list of cases that look like copies. Tick only the copies you want gone. For a pair the app cannot judge, you choose: both sides of one operation, remove the extra copy, or keep both. Nothing is removed until you confirm.

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Why a few duplicates can exist

Sometimes the same operation reaches the app twice. The usual reason is that the same case is recorded differently in your two sources. Your eLogbook keeps your own clinical wording, while the hospital sheet carries a billing label, and standardising that label can occasionally land on a different procedure name. The result is the same patient on the same date in two slightly different rows.

This is by design. The app would rather let a duplicate through, where you can see and clear it, than refuse a genuine case because it looked similar to one already there. Two real procedures on one day, a bilateral case recorded as two rows, and a case re-entered under a corrected hospital number are all legitimate. So the app keeps your record complete first and gives you a safe place to remove the genuine copies.

Re-uploading a file is safe

Import the same file again and the app recognises the cases it already has. This holds even when a row is a day or two off the date you first recorded. A patient already in your logbook, matched by hospital number, a close date and the same operation, updates the case you have instead of becoming a second copy. It fills in only a missing name, age or sex and never changes the operation, the date or any earnings figure. A genuine second, different operation for the same patient on a nearby date is kept as its own case.

Run the check

Open Settings → Remove duplicate cases and tap Check for duplicates. Each group lists every copy of the patient with name, MRN, date, operation and whether earnings are attached. Each copy has its own tick box, so you can keep two and remove one. That matters for a bilateral case: two real procedures where one was logged twice, so you tick only the extra copy. Names are unlocked and read on your phone, as your Cases list does. A case with no name entered shows (name not entered).

How the check groups copies

It matches on every identifier a case carries, both read on your phone: the hospital number (MRN) and the patient’s name. Two cases come together if they share either.

  • A typed case and the same case from a sheet. The commonest pair. The sheet’s copy has the hospital number, and the typed one may differ in spelling.
  • A fuller name on the sheet. If you wrote Patient A and the sheet says Patient A Example, that is one patient. The shorter name must be wholly inside the longer one, at least two names must match, one case must have no hospital number and the dates must be close. A single shared name is never enough.
  • A slightly different spelling, a duplicate hospital record, and a different procedure name across your two sources are all caught. The operation name is a hint for your review, not a wall.
  • Two different hospital numbers are never joined on a name. If both carry a number and the numbers differ, the app treats them as two patients.

How sure the app is

Every group is labelled, which decides how its copies start out.

  • Confident match. Same patient, same date, same operation. The extra copy starts ticked. Untick it to keep both.
  • Needs your review. Same patient, two different operations on the same or a close date. It might be one operation recorded twice under two names, two real procedures, or both sides of one operation. The group says These two might be the same operation. Nothing starts ticked.
  • Dates far apart, review. The same patient much later, such as a year-apart re-import or a mistyped date. Nothing starts ticked.

A pair brought together by name rather than by a shared hospital number is always put to you for review, never treated as confident. Nothing in it starts ticked, whatever else matches. A name is strong evidence but weak proof.

A triplicate is labelled as such. A Select all copies shortcut ticks them together. The copy kept as the original is never offered for removal. A bilateral pair already linked as two sides can never be ticked.

Clearing duplicates

  • One group at a time. Tick the extra copies, tap Remove and confirm the quick Remove N copies? prompt. Only that group’s ticked copies go.
  • Several groups in one pass. A bar pinned to the bottom of the screen shows a live tally, N to remove · M kept, with Apply all. Because it commits everything ticked, it asks you to type REMOVE first.

Case counts and Insights correct themselves straight away. Not sure which copy to remove? Choose Merge into one case instead. It shows both side by side, and Undo merge brings the copy back. See Cases you logged by hand first.

The three choices

For a “needs your review” pair the app does not guess. You choose.

  • Same patient, both sides (bilateral). One operation done left and right. The app asks Which side is which? because it never guesses a side. Confirm with Link as both sides and the two become one bilateral case. Counts do not change, since a bilateral case has always counted as one.
  • Remove this copy. The same case really was entered twice. Tick the extra copy and Remove it. The case you keep is untouched.
  • Keep both — not a duplicate. Two separate operations that share a patient and a nearby date.

An import can spot this ambiguity as two such cases arrive and mark the pair, so it is waiting in your review list. Both cases are always kept until you choose. The mark is only the two cases’ internal reference codes, so nothing readable leaves your phone.

Keep both

Tap Keep both — not a duplicate. With three or more copies the control reads Keep all. The group leaves the check, so it stops pestering you. Nothing is deleted.

The decision is never final or invisible. Kept pairs are listed on the same page under Kept as separate, with patient, date and operation for each side. Tap Review this again and the pair returns to the check. If a new, different operation later lands for the same patient, that fresh pairing is put to you too. Only pairs you have already cleared stay cleared. The app remembers a kept-apart pair only by the two cases’ internal reference codes, so nothing readable leaves your phone.

A wrong hospital number

If two copies sit under different hospital numbers, for example 1234567 and 123467 with a digit dropped, that is a wrong number to correct, not a duplicate to merge. Open the case and use Correct the MRN. See Why the MRN is locked. The finder flags near-miss numbers so you can route them there.

Why a pair was missed

If a pair you expected is not grouped, open the Why might a duplicate be missed? panel under the result. Under Why weren’t these two grouped? pick the first and second case. The app answers in one sentence: different hospital numbers, names where neither contains the other, dates too far apart, a case with no date, a case with neither a name nor a hospital number readable on this device, or a pair you earlier told it to keep both of.

The panel also lists, for each case, the hospital number the check used, where it read it from, the simplified operation name, the date and every match key the case carries. Two cases that share no key are why they split. It shows no names you have not entered and no internal ids. None of it leaves your phone.

Less common