A patient's chart may be restricted because they asked that their medical records be kept confidential from some of your clinic members, or due to role-based access control being configured to allow users to access only patients in a certain location. In either case, users who have the the Patient Chart/Encounter Accessibility Controls permission can still view private charts, but they must "break the glass" and state the reason for the override. If the restriction is due to role-based access control, you can also request consent for a group and specify the length of time the override should be in effect.

A user may need access to a restricted patient's chart in case of emergency, or when one provider is covering for another at a different location when role-based access control is configured.

The fact that a user forced access to the chart is saved in the patient's chart, with a red icon within the Recent Activity section, making it easy to see from the patient dashboard if someone "broke the glass" (see Reviewing recent activity). Users who do not have this permission cannot break the glass, even in an emergency situation. In that case a message appears that you do not have permission to access the chart.

1. Search for and open a patient's chart.

2. In the Permission denied window that appears, type a Reason for forcing access to the patient chart.

3. If permission is denied due to role-based access control, also:

a) Specify which users should have access in the For User(s) field. The default is Myself but, from the list, you can select any group that you are a part of. For example, if a patient is being seen by a specialist and there is a group of users for the specialist's clinic, you could choose that group so anyone in the specialist clinic has access to that patient.

b) Select the Length of time the specified user or group of users should have access to the chart. The default is 1 day. You may want to increase the length of time users have access to the patient in the case where a user is currently booking an appointment for the patient to see the provider, and the appointment isn't for another 2 weeks. Instead of breaking the glass now and again in 2 weeks, you could increase the length of time you have access. The maximum length of time you can select is 1 year.

📌 Note: The For User(s) and Length fields appear only if you are using role-based access control.

3. Click Confirm.

4. Enter your password and click Submit.

5. The patient chart opens and an entry is added to the Recent Activity section of the chart.

If you are using role-based access control, you have access to the chart for the time period you specified when forcing access. The Permission denied message will not appear again during that time.

If you are not using role-based access control, you will have to break the glass to access the patient chart again after you close it, switch to a different patient's chart, or log out.