# Update a patient

Canonical page: https://docs.ovok.com/api/signals-api---patients/update-a-patient

`POST /v1/signals/api/patient/{id}`

Only the fields present are changed; `metadata` is merged, not replaced. Answered with the v1 document.

### Through ovok

- **Who can call it:** Manager apps, and users whose access policy grants the capabilities.
- **Capabilities, all required:** `signals_patients:update`. Project admins have every capability; client applications get no admin bypass.
- When you send `submitters` or `metadata`, ovok keeps your project's submitter and stamp in them. Sending `alertsPaused`, `alertIfEmpty`, `alertIfNote` or `alertInactiveDays` also needs `signals_config:update` and `signals_silence:update`.
- If your access covers only some patients (anyone but project admins, manager or submitter apps, and anyone whose Patient access has no criteria), the patient, and one a `refId` in the body names, must be ones you can update. A patient is named by its Signals id, or by its Medplum Patient id where Signals takes a `refId`; ovok asks Signals which patient a Signals id is.