When you create a patient in Freed, you'll now enter their information in separate fields for first name, last name, and date of birth.

This gives Freed a more consistent way to identify patients and lays the groundwork for matching the same patient across Freed, your EHR, and Front Desk.

Instead of entering a patient identifier in a single free-text field, you'll see three fields when creating a patient:

The date of birth must be a valid date. Freed does not otherwise validate what you enter in the first and last name fields.

You don’t need to update your existing patients before this change takes effect. Freed will automatically split existing patient names into the new first name and last name fields.

For names that contain spaces, Freed will split the name at the last space:

If an existing patient name doesn’t contain any spaces, the entire name will be placed in the last name field, and the first name field will be left empty.

Here are a few examples:

This change won’t affect how the patient’s name is displayed in places like the visit page, so you may not notice a difference unless you edit the patient.
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Because Freed previously stored patient identifiers as a single free-text field, the automatic split may not always match how you would divide a patient’s name or shorthand.
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Once the structured patient fields are available, you can edit a patient to correct their first and last name if needed.
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Existing patients will not automatically receive a date of birth. Their date of birth field will remain empty until one is added.

Yes.

If you use Freed as a scratch pad and identify patients by room number, initials, or another shorthand, you can continue using the workflow that works for you.

You'll need to split your identifier across the first and last name fields and enter a valid date of birth, but Freed does not check whether the name fields contain a patient's legal first and last name.

For example, if you typically identify a patient as "Room 12," you can continue using that shorthand across the name fields.

Until now, patient identifiers in Freed have been free text. That flexibility makes it possible for the same patient to appear under different names or spellings, and makes it difficult for Freed to reliably connect a patient with the same person in another system.

Separating first name, last name, and date of birth gives each patient record a consistent structure.

That structure is an important foundation for connecting patient information across Freed, including matching a patient with the same person in your EHR or Front Desk.

When a patient has a date of birth on their record, Freed can use it to determine their age instead of inferring age from the context of the visit.

This helps keep age tied to the patient record rather than relying on what happens to be mentioned during a conversation.

Not necessarily.

If you already use patients' names and dates of birth, you'll simply enter that information into the new fields.

If you use initials, room numbers, or another shorthand, you can continue doing so. The main change is that patient information is now entered in a structured format rather than one free-text field.

When creating a patient, complete the first name, last name, and date of birth fields before saving the patient.

No other changes are required.

If you need further help or have questions, you can get in touch with our Clinician Support team in the method that works best for you: