# First patient workflow walkthrough

This walkthrough takes you through the complete lifecycle of a patient in Welkin – from creating the record to completing a care interaction. It is designed to orient new care team members and to validate that a new configuration is working end-to-end.

> This guide assumes your organization's Welkin environment has already been configured with Programs, Assessments, and Roles. If not, see [Setting Up Your Organization](/getting-started/setting-up-organization.md) first.

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## What you will do in this walkthrough

1. Create a patient record
2. Enroll the patient in a program
3. Assign a care team
4. Complete an assessment
5. Schedule an encounter
6. Send a message
7. Complete the encounter
8. Review the patient timeline

***

## Step 1: Create a patient record

1. From the Care Portal, click **Patients** in the left navigation
2. Click **+ New Patient**
3. Fill in the required fields: First Name, Last Name, Date of Birth, and contact information
4. Fill in any additional fields required by your organization's configuration
5. Click **Save**

The patient record opens automatically with an empty timeline.

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## Step 2: Enroll the patient in a program

1. In the patient record, navigate to the **Programs** tab
2. Click **Enroll in Program**
3. Select the relevant program and starting Phase
4. Set the Enrollment Date and click **Enroll**

If Automations are configured to trigger on enrollment (e.g., sending a welcome message), they will fire at this point.

***

## Step 3: Assign a care team

1. In the patient record, navigate to the **Care Team** tab
2. Click **+ Add Care Team Member**
3. Search for and select a user
4. Select their Role on this patient's care team and click **Add**

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## Step 4: Complete an assessment

1. In the patient record, navigate to the **Assessments** tab
2. Click **+ New Assessment**
3. Select the relevant assessment from the list
4. Complete all fields and click **Save** or **Submit**

The completed assessment appears in the patient timeline with a timestamp and score (if applicable).

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## Step 5: Schedule an encounter

1. In the patient record, click **+ New Encounter** or go to the **Calendar**
2. Select the Encounter Type (Phone, In-Person, Telehealth)
3. Set the date, time, duration, and assigned care team member
4. Click **Save**

The encounter appears in the Calendar and on the patient's timeline with a "Scheduled" status.

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## Step 6: Send a message

1. In the patient record, navigate to the **Communications** tab
2. Click **+ New Message**
3. Select the channel (SMS or Secure Email)
4. Type your message or select a Message Template
5. Click **Send**

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## Step 7: Update encounter status

After the encounter takes place:

1. Navigate to the Calendar and find the encounter
2. Update the Status to **Completed**, **No Show**, or **Cancelled**
3. Add encounter notes and click **Save**

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## Step 8: Review the patient timeline

Navigate to the patient record's **Timeline** tab to see a complete, chronological view of all activity: program enrollments, assessments, encounters, messages, tasks, and automation events.

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## What to do next

Now that you have completed a full patient workflow, explore the detailed feature guides in the [Care Portal](https://github.com/welkincloud-io/welkin-docs/blob/master/docs/care/README.md) and [Administration](https://github.com/welkincloud-io/welkin-docs/blob/master/docs/admin/README.md) sections to go deeper on each area.


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