What is a Team?

A team is a collection of both patients and users (called 'team members'). Each patient can be cared for by multiple teams simultaneously, and each user can be a member of multiple teams. This flexible many-to-many relationship allows CAREFUL to mirror real clinical workflows where patients often receive care from several specialties at once.

At all times, at least one team member must be responsible for each patient in the team. This ensures accountability and clear lines of communication.

Team membership controls access to patient information. When you're a member of a team, you can view the details of all patients being cared for by that team — including their demographics, clinical notes, actions, and care history.

Important: When a patient is discharged from a team, team members immediately lose access to that patient's information. The patient can only be readmitted to the team if care resumes.

If you're a member of a team, that team's name appears in the Teams section of the left-hand sidebar. Click (or tap on mobile) the team name to open the Team View, where you can:

• See all patients currently being cared for by the team
• View and manage team members
• Review outstanding actions for the team's patients
• Access the team chat (if enabled)
• Send and receive patient referrals
• View the complete audit log of team activities

All team members can see the same patient information for patients in that team, ensuring coordinated care.

More information about using the Team View can be found in the Team View documentation.

Certain team members are designated as Team Owners, who have additional management privileges within the team:

• Add or remove users from the team
• Promote team members to Team Owner or demote them to standard members
• Rename the team
• Manage team chat settings (if chat is enabled)
• Configure handover categories for the team
• Update the team memo

The person who creates a team automatically becomes its first Team Owner. Organisation Administrators can also promote existing team members to Team Owner.

More information about Team Owner functions can be found in the Team Owner documentation.

Standard team members have full access to patient care within the team but cannot manage team membership or settings. They can:

• View all patients in the team
• Take responsibility for patients
• Create and complete actions for patients
• Add clinical notes
• Send and receive handovers
• Refer patients to other teams
• Discharge patients (with appropriate checks)

Organisation Administrators have full access to all teams within their organisation, regardless of whether they're formally team members. They can perform any team function, including creating new teams, managing membership, and accessing patient information across all teams.

Only Organisation Administrators can create new teams:

1. From the sidebar, select My Organization
2. Click (or tap) the kebab menu (⋮) at the top of the screen
3. Select New team
4. Enter the team name and click Save

You'll automatically become the first Team Owner of the new team.

Team members can add patients to their team in several ways:

• Add existing patient: From the Team View, click the kebab menu (⋮) and select Add patient
• Readmit discharged patient: If a patient was previously discharged, search for them and select Readmit
• Accept a referral: When another team refers a patient to you, accepting the referral adds them to your team

When a patient is added to a team, the person performing the action automatically becomes responsible for that patient.

Patients are removed from teams through discharge:

1. Navigate to the patient's profile
2. Click the kebab menu (⋮)
3. Select Discharge from team
4. If the patient belongs to multiple teams, select which team to discharge them from
5. CAREFUL will check for any blocking open actions and prompt you to resolve them
6. Confirm the discharge

Important: If this is the patient's last team, their status automatically changes to Inactive and all team members lose access to their information.

It's common for a patient to be cared for by several teams simultaneously. For example:

• A patient admitted under General Surgery may also be receiving care from Cardiology
• A patient in the Emergency Department might be referred to the Acute Medical Unit while investigations are ongoing

Each team can see the patient's complete information, including notes and actions created by other teams. This ensures continuity of care across specialties.

Clinical staff often work across several teams. You might be a Team Owner in one team and a standard member in another. Your sidebar will list all teams you belong to, and you can switch between them to manage different patient groups.