Access a patient record in an emergency (Break the glass access)

This allows a professional to see a patient's record in an emergency before consent can be obtained. E.g. when the patient lacks the capacity to consent (e.g the patient is unconscious) and the professional's clinical judgement is that the patient's safety requires the professional to see the record.

Here are the steps to access a patient record in an emergency:

1. Search your organisation patient list for the patient

2. Click on the patient name hyperlink and click on ‘Ask for access’ in the patient banner.

3. Select the option I need emergency access for the patient's safety and click ‘Next’. You will be presented with a message explaining that this is just for emergency access to protect the safety of the patient and that this event will be logged in the audit trail, click ‘Next’ to access the record.

Access will last until you next log out. The patient is not added to your team in this case. If the patient is registered they will receive an email notification informing them about this action.

Monitoring usage

The organisation's privacy officer receives a report of all break the glass accesses made by professionals from their organisation. Patients are also able to view who has broken the glass in their records via their Access Log.