Keepers and retention

Every copy of a record has one keeper. The practice is the keeper of its files, and its practice owners act for it. You are the keeper of the copies you hold: the copy you took when you left a practice, and a copy sent to you. A clinician who writes in another practice's file is not a keeper of it, and a co-signature makes no keeper.

Each keeper types their own number of years under Retention, on a computer: the practice's by a practice owner, yours on your account, for every device of yours. There is no default and no rule by country; nothing is flagged until a number is typed. It is a whole number between 1 year and 100 years.

A record is past its period when the patient's last clinical entry plus the keeper's years has gone by. Past it, the record is marked Past your retention period on Patients and listed under Records past your retention period, where the keeper chooses:

• Keep: the record stays as it is, on hold, with a reason that goes into the audit trail, until you choose Review again.
• Delete: confirmed by typing the word. On this computer the record is destroyed. On the sync server the practice's Delete removes the file for every hat-holder and grantee, keeping only what a copy still holds for the copy's holder; a copy-holder's Delete removes their copy alone. A new entry for the patient after the practice's Delete is a new record.

A Delete is final: nobody decides twice. The app never deletes on its own, with one exception, the lapse rule: 90 days after a person stops being entitled, the sync server deletes the copies only that person's rights stood behind.