A patient who has been seen multiple times at the hospital should have multiple patient records in Epic.

• A. True
• B. False
• C. Not sure
• D. Cannot determine

Answer: (B)

In Epic, a patient is represented by a single master patient record identified by a unique patient ID. When someone is seen multiple times, those visits are stored as separate encounters linked to that one record, not as separate patient records. This single record approach, guided by the Master Patient Index, keeps all aspects of the patient’s history—medications, allergies, problems, labs, imaging, and notes—tused together across encounters. If there appear to be multiple records for the same person, those are duplicates that should be merged or deduplicated to maintain a complete, consistent history. So the statement is not correct; there should be one patient record with multiple encounters.