Multi-branch organisations

Where the day breaks

The break shows on a busy morning. One branch is full and another is quiet, and head office learns that only when someone calls. Each branch keeps its own book, so a patient who came yesterday to the other address is entered again. Collection is added at night from two files that do not share names. One shared clinical screen lets a receptionist in the quiet branch open a visit that is not theirs. A separate system in every branch leaves the centre without occupancy and without collection until someone types a spreadsheet.

What we actually install

One access policy, and permission that belongs to a branch. Appointments, waiting and the visit stay where the patient arrived. A central reading shows occupancy, waiting and collection for the branches the viewer may see. It does not open the clinical note. A campaign and its follow-up may sit at organisation level, because a campaign number is not an examination. A clinician who works in two branches is authorised in both, by name, not by copying the file.

The operating sequence

In the morning each branch runs its own list. Reception there sees who arrived at that door. The clinician documents the visit in that branch. Finance, at the branch or at the centre when the contract says so, takes the invoice from that service. Head office opens a report of movement: how many appointments, how long the wait, what was collected. The report is a count, not a file. Nothing is copied to the other branch so that a screen looks complete.

1. Each branch runs its own appointments, waiting and visits.
2. A user sees only the branch named on their permission.
3. Head office reads occupancy, waiting and collection, not the examination.
4. A campaign and its follow-up may be shared. The visit is not.
5. A file moves only when a clinician is authorised in the other branch.
6. The noon figure is read from the same records, not typed again at night.

A boundary we keep

A central report must not break the clinical isolation of one branch from another. Sharing a name, a campaign or a cashier policy is not sharing a medical record. We do not promise that every old file from a previous system appears in every branch on the first day.