Cases you logged by hand first

In short. A case you capture carries the same hidden key an import uses, so the next sheet updates it instead of adding a copy. Cases captured with an older version of the app may lack that key. Repair the keys first, then merge any pair that turns up. A merge never picks for you where the two disagree, and Undo merge brings the copy back.

Before you import

Open Settings → Remove duplicate cases and choose Repair the match-up keys. It runs on your phone and only adds the missing key. Nothing is deleted and nothing else changes. Your patient names and numbers never leave the device.

Every case you capture carries an MRN, because the capture form requires one. Cases captured with an older version of the app may lack the match-up key, not the hospital number. A case that came in without a hospital number by another route, or one typed with a different spelling of the name, is still caught by the duplicate check, which also compares names. See Check for duplicates.

The app also runs the repair for you, once, when you unlock after a new version. If it finds a case you typed and the same case from a sheet, it keeps both. The pair appears on the same page for you to decide. Nothing is merged for you.

If a pair already exists

Wherever a group holds exactly two cases, whether the app is confident or has only flagged it for review, choose Merge into one case.

1. You see both cases side by side before anything happens.
2. If the app picked the wrong one to keep, tap Keep the other one instead.
3. Confirm. The case you keep holds on to its patient details, its confirmed status and its earnings. The side, the site, your notes and any extra procedures recorded only on the copy move across. The copy leaves your logbook but is not destroyed.

Where the two cases disagree, you decide. If one says male and the other female, or they carry different sides, sites, operation names or times, the merge stops and asks These two disagree. Which is right? with both values side by side. Confirm cannot be tapped until every question is answered. For notes there is a third choice, Keep both notes, chosen by default, because a note you dictated should never be the thing that gets dropped. Details that agree, or exist on only one case, are carried across without asking.

If you pick the copy’s value, the kept case’s old value is saved with the merge so an undo can put it back. Your answers are worked out and scrambled on your phone. What the app records of the decision is the name of the detail and which side won, never the value.

Undoing a merge

Merged the wrong pair? The same page lists your merges under Merged cases. Tap Undo merge. The app first shows exactly what will happen: the case that comes back, the details that leave the kept case because they came from the copy, and anything that stays because you changed it after the merge. Nothing changes until you tap Undo this merge.

Your own later edits are never undone. The copy’s earnings and extra procedures go back with it. Afterwards the two cases usually show as a possible duplicate again, and you decide afresh: keep both, link as a bilateral pair, or merge differently.

Two operations on one patient in one day

If you operate on the same patient twice in a day, log both. If the app asks whether a capture is the same case or a second one, choose Save this as a second case. A case is never silently dropped, and the app never tells you a case saved when it did not.

Less common

• Some older merges cannot be fully undone. If you picked the copy’s value for a detail in a merge made with an earlier version, the kept case’s older value was not saved. The app names any detail it cannot put back rather than calling the undo complete.
• Earlier monthly tabs missing details. If a workbook with several monthly tabs was imported before the keys were repaired, some earlier cases may lack operating times or earnings. Import the same workbook again after the repair and each row reaches its own case.
• Names stay on your phone. See Where your data lives.