Introduction

Responsibility in CAREFUL identifies which clinicians are actively caring for a patient. When you take responsibility for a patient, you become their assigned caregiver and they appear in your My Patients view. This ensures clear accountability and helps teams coordinate care effectively.

Before You Start

Permissions:

To take responsibility for a patient, you must be a member of at least one team that the patient belongs to
No special administrator permissions are required

Prerequisites:

The patient must be active in a team you belong to
For team-level actions (taking responsibility for all patients), you must be a member of that team

Taking Responsibility for an Individual Patient

Navigate to the patient's profile page by clicking on their name from any patient list
Click the dropdown menu button (⋮) in the top navigation bar
Select "Take Responsibility" from the menu
The action is immediate - no confirmation dialog appears
You'll see a "My Patient" tag appear next to the patient's name in the header
The patient now appears in your My Patients view

Note: The dropdown menu only shows "Take Responsibility" if you're NOT currently responsible but have a team in common with the patient.

Relinquishing Responsibility for a Patient

When You Can Relinquish

Before you can relinquish responsibility, CAREFUL performs safety checks to ensure the patient won't be left without care:

From the patient's profile page, click the dropdown menu button (⋮)
Select "Relinquish responsibility"
CAREFUL runs an automatic preflight check and shows you one of four possible outcomes:

Outcome 1: Safe to Relinquish (Success)

If you have no outstanding actions with this patient:

A dialog appears with a green checkmark icon
Message: "You have no outstanding actions with patient [Name], so you can safely relinquish your responsibility"
Click the "Relinquish responsibility" button to confirm
The "My Patient" tag disappears and the patient is removed from your list

Outcome 2: Blocking Actions

If you have open actions assigned to you for this patient:

A dialog displays the message: "The following actions must be closed or reassigned before you can relinquish responsibility for this patient"
A table shows your blocking actions with columns: Title, Assigned to, and Due
Click "Goto my actions" to navigate to your actions page
Close or reassign these actions, then retry relinquishing responsibility

Outcome 3: Sole Responsibility

If you're the only clinician responsible for this patient:

A dialog shows a red blocked icon
Message: "You have sole responsibility for patient [Name], so you cannot safely relinquish your responsibility"
You cannot proceed - instead, use the Handover Patient feature to transfer responsibility to a colleague

Outcome 4: Orphaned Team

If you're the only responsible team member for this patient within a specific team:

A dialog shows a red blocked icon
Message: "You are the only member of the team [Team Name] who has responsibility for this patient within that team..."
You must either handover the patient to another team member or discharge the patient from that team

Taking Responsibility for All Patients in a Team

Use this feature when starting a shift or taking over care for an entire team's patient list:

Navigate to the team page by selecting it from My Teams
Click the dropdown menu button (⋮) in the top navigation bar
Select "Take responsibility for all patients"
A confirmation dialog appears with the title: "Take Responsibility All Patients in Team"
Read the message: "Please confirm that you wish to take responsibility for all patients in this team"
Click the "Take Responsibility" button to confirm (or "Cancel" to abort)
The system processes your request - the button shows a loading state
On success, all patients in the team now display the "My Patient" tag for you
All team patients appear in your My Patients view

Note: If validation errors occur, the dialog will display error messages explaining what went wrong.

Understanding the "My Patient" Tag

The "My Patient" tag appears in several locations when you're responsible for a patient:

Patient profile header
Patient tables and lists
Team patient views

This visual indicator helps you and your colleagues quickly identify which patients are assigned to you.

Viewing Responsible Users

On any patient's profile page, scroll to the Profile tab to see:

Responsible users: A list of all clinicians currently responsible for this patient, with their job titles and specialties
Responsible teams: All teams currently caring for this patient

Tips

Quick shift handover: Use "Take responsibility for all patients" when starting your shift to quickly assume care for your team's patients
Check before going off duty: Before relinquishing responsibility, review the preflight check carefully to ensure patients remain covered
Blocked by actions?: If you have many blocking actions, click "Goto my actions" and use bulk close or reassign features to resolve them quickly
Sole responsibility warning: If you see the sole responsibility error, this is a safety feature - use the Handover workflow instead to ensure seamless care transfer
Audit trail: All responsibility changes are logged in the patient's audit log for compliance and review

Handover Patient: Transfer responsibility AND outstanding actions to a specific colleague
Handover All My Patients in Team: Bulk handover when going off duty
Discharge from Team: Remove a patient from a team's care when treatment is complete
My Patients View: See all patients you're currently responsible for

Managing Patient Responsibility