Manage patients
Create and update patients through the API, including the identifier behavior that replaces existing identifiers.
Field-level reference is in Patients. This page covers the behavior worth knowing first.
Search before you create
Creating a patient who already exists produces two records for one person. The API can merge them with
mergePatients, though Awell Care offers no way to do it. Always
search by your own identifier before creating.
Updating identifiers replaces them
Passing a patient identifier object to the update mutation REPLACES any existing identifiers.
If you want to add one, use the dedicated add-identifier mutation instead.
An update that includes one identifier, intended as a no-op for the others, removes the others, and anything looking a patient up by a removed identifier stops finding them. See Patient identifiers.
Validation
Certain fields expect particular formats: dates as ISO 8601, phone numbers as E.164. The create mutation's validation section is the authoritative list, and the update mutation follows the same rules. E.164 phone numbers gives the phone rules in full.
Patient language
A patient's preferred language can be set through the API, and it affects what they see on Hosted Pages. Set it when you create the patient if you know it; changing it later doesn't retranslate anything already sent.
Anonymous patients
Awell supports patients with no PHI, which suits an intake flow where you don't yet know who the person is. See Before you trigger a care flow.
Next steps
Next: Versions and releases.