# Create patients

Canonical page: https://docs.ovok.com/signals/standalone/api/patients/create-patients

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# Create patients [#create-patients]

| Method | Path |
| --- | --- |
| `POST` | `/v1/signals/api/patient` |

<Availability route="POST /v1/signals/api/patient" />

Upserts on `refId`: posting a patient that already exists updates it rather than duplicating it, so a replayed provisioning run is safe. Each entry's `config` — flags and triggers — is applied in the same call, and `metadata` is merged.

### Through ovok [#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.
- ovok adds your project's submitter to each new patient and stamps `metadata.project` with your project. Sending `config` also needs `signals_config:update` and `signals_silence:update`. New patients count toward your plan's monitored-patient cap.
- If your access covers only some patients (anyone but project admins, manager or submitter apps, and anyone whose Patient access has no criteria), every patient the body names must be one 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.

## Request [#request]

### Body [#body]

Required. Schema `V1CreatePatientsDto`.

| Field | Type | Required | Description |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| `patients` | array of object | Yes | — |
| `patients[].config` | object | No | Initial config, applied in the same call: `alertIfEmpty`, `alertIfNote`, `alertInactiveDays`, and `triggers` in the same shape as V1ConfigTriggerSchema, including its `metadata` stamp. |
| `patients[].id` | string | No | — |
| `patients[].name` | string | No | — |
| `patients[].refId` | string | Yes | — |
| `patients[].submitters` | array of string | No | — |
| `patients[].subscribers` | array of string | No | — |
| `patients[].metadata` | object | No | — |
| `patients[].email` | string | No | — |
| `patients[].bsn` | string | No | — |
| `patients[].umoId` | string | No | — |
| `patients[].dateOfBirth` | string | No | — |
| `patients[].tags` | object | No | — |

## Responses [#responses]

| Status | Meaning |
| --- | --- |
| `200` | The patients as stored, in request order. |
| `400` | The query carries a raw `#`, or more than 200 parameters. |
| `401` | Your ovok access token, or your client id and secret, are missing or invalid. |
| `402` | The new patients would go past your plan's monitored-patient cap. |
| `403` | ovok refused the call: you lack a capability this route needs, or your session has no project, or a patient is stamped with another project, or your access covers only some patients and the call names none, or you can read a patient the call names but not update it. From Signals: Authenticated, but the client's role does not permit this, or it is not attached to the patient. |
| `404` | A patient the call names is not one you can read. |
| `409` | Your project has no Signals tenant of its own (`SIGNALS_TENANT_NOT_OWN`), or it is moving to another one. |
| `415` | The body is not JSON. |
| `422` | A number in the body is out of range. A patient id is not 1 to 64 letters, digits, `.`, `_`, `~` or `-`. More than 100 patients are named. A patient is named by something other than a string. From Signals: The payload failed validation. |
| `429` | Too many requests. Retry after the seconds in `Retry-After`. |
| `500` | ovok hit an unexpected fault, such as your project having no Signals submitter. |
| `502` | Signals answered with something ovok couldn't use, or refused ovok's own credential. |
| `503` | Signals is unavailable. Retry after the seconds in `Retry-After`. |
| `504` | Signals did not answer in time. |

## Example [#example]

```bash
curl --request POST 'https://api.sandbox.ovok.com/v1/signals/api/patient' \
  --user "${OVOK_CLIENT_ID}:${OVOK_CLIENT_SECRET}" \
  --header 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  --data @body.json
```