Getting started with Concentric

Before we start, if you're using Concentric at a large healthcare organisation there may be a specific getting started guide, including local integration and support details here.

Welcome! As a small team solely focused on improving the consent process we're here to support you and hope you enjoy the move over to digital consent.

Most healthcare software is difficult to use, slow, and gets in the way. We hope you soon agree that using Concentric feels pretty different. This is a light-touch guide, supported by a video walkthrough, and should be more than enough to get you comfortable with using Concentric within a few minutes.

To start, watch this 3 minute video

This video briefly outlines how Concentric works, and is supported by a more in-depth demonstration video - covering the various different workflows and scenarios - which can be seen in the 'How is Concentric used?' section further down this page.

Why introduce digital consent?

After using Concentric, the vast majority of clinicians state that they prefer digital consent to the traditional paper process, that the quality of the consent process is improved, and that their time is better utilised.

Patients report improved shared decision making quality, appreciate that their consent information is increasingly accessible and clearly presented, and allows them to revisit the information in their own time.

Read more about the impact of introducing digital consent here.

  • When your account was set up you’ll have received an email from Concentric with some initial instructions regarding activating your account. Depending on how you’ll login to Concentric this will have either told you which single sign-on provider to use or will have asked you to set your password.

  • You can then access Concentric at app.concentric.health, or if you’ve been given demo access to Concentric, this is at demo.concentric.health. Concentric can be accessed anywhere, on any web-enabled device. The integrations with other systems work the same regardless of where you are accessing Concentric from.

  • To get comfortable with using Concentric, most clinicians try it out with a test patient record for a few minutes. Each Concentric deployment has some test patients set up, usually you can search for ‘test-patient’ in the search bar but if that doesn’t work email support@concentric.health and we’ll direct you to your test patient records.

How is Concentric used?

Using Concentric is simple, and most clinicians take minutes to get accustomed to how it works. Most people will find that this 30-minute in-depth demonstration gives them a detailed understanding, including how Concentric is used in different scenarios, and the confidence to start using Concentric with their next patient.

Some scenarios are not relevant for every clinician, for example the consent form 2 scenario, so if you'd prefer to only view the sections that are relevant to you, here are the video timestamps for each scenario:

  • 00:00 - Intro and log in
  • 03:30 - Adult patient who is giving their consent during a face-to-face clinic appointment (Scenario 1)
  • 15:52 - Adult patient giving consent remotely following a consent conversation (Scenario 2)
  • 19:38 - Consent form 2 with consent given on day of surgery (Scenario 3)
  • 24:04 - Consent form 4 / treatment decision in patient's best interests (Scenario 4)
  • 27:58 - Using a blank consent template (Scenario 5)
  • 29:30 - Consult view followed by remote consent (Scenario 6)

If you'd prefer to read a walkthrough of how Concentric is used rather than watch the above video, it's available here, but you must return to this page to review the subsequent onboarding information.

Finding a patient record

In most cases Concentric is integrated with patient demographics, meaning that to find a patient record simply search using their identification number (depending on your deployment of Concentric this might be a hospital number, clinic number or national identifier such as an NHS number).

On selecting a patient, ensure that it is the correct patient so that no consent information is assigned to the incorrect patient.

If your deployment is not integrated with patient demographics there are some additional details about creating patient records here.

WHO Surgical Safety Checklist

On the day of treatment completed consent episode details are usually viewed on screen and do not need to be printed out. Depending on whether your deployment is integrated with other systems, this is either viewed within Concentric by clicking the ‘View consent form PDF’ button, or within the main electronic health record.

View consent form button


Important clinical safety considerations

As part of using the Concentric application you confirm that you have read, understood, and agree to the following statements:

  • As a clinician you maintain the clinical responsibility for the consent interaction and the appropriateness, at an individual patient level, of consent information being selected, documented, and shared.
  • The information within a Concentric treatment template may change over time as part of Concentric Health's review processes or due to local requests for changes. In most cases these changes will not be directly communicated to an individual clinician. It is the clinician's responsibility to ensure, for each consent episode, that the information being shared is appropriate for the patient.
  • Information provided within Concentric should be consistent with, and supplementary to a consent conversation between clinician and patient. Information shared as part of the Concentric process sits alongside but does not replace the need for a consent conversation.
  • As a clinician it is your responsibility to read and adhere to the professional responsibilities and standards set out by the General Medical Council in their guidance, Decision Making and Consent.
  • When delegating consent, you must ensure that the practitioner has the relevant training and knowledge to undertake this and if not, make alternative arrangements which may include training and direct supervision.
  • When the process of obtaining consent has been delegated to you, you should only undertake this if you have the appropriate training and knowledge. You must let your colleague know if you are not able to meet this standard, and ask for support. You must not practice outside your area of competence.
  • Where the clinician and patient do not share a spoken language professional interpretation services should be used to facilitate the consent conversation. Translated Concentric information can be used alongside, but should not be used instead of an interpreter.
  • It is important that patients have access to their consent information. Whilst most patients will receive this digitally it is important that consent information is printed and shared with patients when digital access is not possible.
  • To ensure the security of patient health data and reliability of the audit trail you must log out following clinical use, and you must not share access credentials. All interactions within Concentric are associated with your name and clinical practice registration.
  • When needing to enter patient contact details you should ensure accurate data entry so that information is successfully received and not inappropriately shared with a different individual.
  • Following departmental transitioning to digital consent it is important to only use digital consent (outside of some business continuity plan scenarios) in order to minimise confusion and potential errors within the healthcare system.

Clinician consent statements

To simplify the Concentric process, the clinician receiving the patient's consent automatically adds an electronic signature to the consent form PDF as part of being logged in and going through the consent flow with the patient (consult view), or by enabling remote consent.

The electronic signature is associated with the following two statements, added to the 'Statement of health professional' section on the consent form PDF:

  • I have explained the procedure, including the intended benefits and serious- or frequently occurring risks described in this document to the patient.
  • I have also discussed what the procedure is likely to involve, the benefits and risks of any alternative treatment (including no treatment), and any particular concerns of the patient.

You should ensure that you are comfortable that the above is true prior to progressing through the consent flow in consult view or enabling remote consent.

Release notes

Concentric is shaped by what our clinician and patient users tell us, and we are always looking to improve based on this feedback. We regularly release updates to Concentric with new and improved product features, and updated clinical content.

You can read our product release notes and content release notes to see the updates that we've made recently.

The list of all the treatment templates currently available within Concentric, presented by specialty, is maintained in our Concentric treatment template list.

Frequently asked questions

You can explore our knowledge bank for answers to frequently asked questions (FAQ's) from clinicians and deploying teams.

Support and contact details

If you are having any issues getting started with Concentric, a problem arises, or you need an account set up, please let us know so we can quickly get things sorted for you.

Email: support@concentric.health

Supplementary information

This information is only relevant to some users, and is linked to from the relevant sections above.

Creating a patient record

If your deployment is not integrated with patient demographics then a patient record needs to be created within Concentric before a first episode is created. You’ll know this is the case if you’re offered the option to ‘Add a new patient with this number’ after search for a patient. Creating a new patient record involves adding some basic demographics:

Concentric new patient form

In this non-integrated scenario you should ensure that all the patient demographic fields are correct prior to creating the patient record as errors are associated with clinical risk and may mean that it is difficult to find the record in future, and may mean that consent episodes associated to the patient record cannot be used to confirm that consent has been given (for example in theatre).