Is it like the case of a single child moving from camp to camp, giving slightly altered names to different workers?
A record marked “duplicate” can be a few different things. Remember, in case management, one individual = one case. If the same vulnerable individual (usually a child) is registered more than once in the system, they will have more than one unique identifier. This is a problem, since we want a single case manager to take responsibility for ensuring care for that individual. So, if a system user manually marks a record “duplicate” it usually means they - or their sys admin - have discovered that the same individual has multiple records. Marking the record “duplicate” does not erase it, but the default case list view (and reports) only displays records marked “open”.
To add to this thread as this has become a frequent support request:
There should be a process in place before any cases are disabled or marked as a duplicate to verify the case before the action is performed.
- Verify that the organization has in fact conducted their due diligence to ensure these are duplicate cases and not active case records
- Verify any cases that you perceive as duplicate with those case workers that are currently managing the records to ensure you are not disabling an active record
- Once the records are verified to be duplicate, prior to closing the case, please make a note in the “Other Comments” form to indicate which the case is a duplicate of
- Once the comment is saved, then you can mark the cases as duplicate by going to the registration form and marking the case as a duplicate under the “case status” field:
The disable function, on the other hand, should only be done on cases that have been entered by accident.
How can you be certain certain that a case you’re starting/registered is a case that’s already been entered after you searched for it? Is there a criteria for what is a match? Is it only that you use some form of ID? What if the child doesn’t have an ID? What if the child was entered without an id and then you enter again the child with or without an ID?
There is no certitude on the existence of a case that you are entering if there is no possibility of looking for it with ID number / proGres v4 number. But then later we can check for duplicate cases as duplicate reports are built in CPIMS+ v1.7.
If you are operating multiple instances in one country, what is the risk/potential uproar that I as Organization X will say I registered 100 children and Organization Y says they registered 100, and in reality we registered half of the same kids both of us. Does this possibility of “double-counting” really make people upset or are people accepting of it?
It depends on whether we have child protection people leading the process or more information management people. From an IM perspective, double counting is often problematic. From a programmatic perspective, if we are double counting, we’re also potentially missing some vulnerable children who do need support – since we have a limit as to how many children we can provide CM to, due to staff capacity, then it means that between us we’re reaching 150 distinct children (25 children are the same across both Org X and Org Y) instead of 200 (all different children). From a response perspective this is also problematic therefore. From the child’s perspective as well, the fact they are receiving CM from 2 caseworkers, it can lead to problems, especially if the two organisations are not coordinating, including potentially doing harm to the child. In general there is a verification mechanism that allows removal of duplicate cases.