The measurement-results vs. clinical-content line

Rivet is a communication tool. Your EHR is your system of record for clinical content. The line between the two isn’t a marketing distinction — it’s an architectural boundary baked into how Rivet stores data, what it retains, and what it deliberately doesn’t capture.

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The line, stated plainly

The pattern: Rivet carries messages, calls, files in transit, and the numeric outputs of an in-session measure. Your EHR carries diagnoses, treatment plans, formulations, and the longitudinal chart.

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Why this line exists

Three reasons, all load-bearing.

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1. Smaller regulatory surface

The less clinical content Rivet holds, the smaller the surface that PHIPA, PIPEDA, your College, and any future audit can land on. Storing voicemails and message threads is a defined, bounded category. Storing diagnoses and treatment plans pulls Rivet into the same retention regime as Jane (~10 years for psychology Colleges) and the same audit posture as an EHR. That’s a different product.

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2. Retention rules differ

Communication content has a retention limit — voicemail audio purges at 30 days, caller information purges 90 days after last activity. That’s the right shape for a communication tool. Your clinical chart has a retention floor — your College requires you to keep it for a long time. Mixing those two retention models would break both. The architecture enforces the line: Rivet doesn’t have storage that holds clinical-record-grade content with clinical-record-grade retention. The fields aren’t there. The schema doesn’t model it.

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3. Custodian liability stays cleanly with you

You’re the custodian of your clinical record. If Rivet drifted into being a place clinical records live, the accountability picture would blur — and you don’t want the picture blurred. The DPA writes down that Rivet is the transmission channel, not the system of record. Your EHR is the system of record. Rivet stays in its lane.

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What “measurement results” means in practice

When you push a PHQ-9 or a GAD-7 in a session, the client fills it out, and Rivet computes the score. The result lands in your inbox or in the session log as a number with the date and the template identifier. That’s a result — a single value that summarizes the measure at a point in time. What Rivet captures:

• The numeric score (or sub-scores where the measure has them).
• The severity band the score falls in.
• The date and time.
• The template version used.

What Rivet does not capture as part of the chart:

• The full clinical narrative around why you administered the measure.
• Your interpretation of the result for this specific client.
• Your treatment plan adjustments based on the result.
• The diagnosis the measure supported.

Those belong in your EHR. The score is the data point; the narrative, the formulation, and the plan are the chart. You can export a measure’s full filled response (via “Copy for session notes” or a PDF download) to paste into your EHR as a chart entry. Once you’ve done that, the chart entry lives in your EHR — that’s the system of record. Rivet keeps the numeric result and the audit metadata; the rich content goes to your EHR.

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Practitioner-private notes never leave your browser

The handful of notes you might jot on a worksheet during a session — the ”✎ note” textareas next to a question, or your scratch annotations — are practitioner-private. They live in your browser’s memory only, never sync to a Rivet server, and never reach your client. They surface in the copy-to-clipboard output and the PDF download when you choose to export — and that’s the only path. If you close the session without exporting, the annotations are gone. That’s intentional: annotations are session scratchpad, not chart data.

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What this lets you do

The line is restrictive on purpose, and what you get for accepting it is:

• A communication tool you can run on a sane retention schedule.
• A defensible “designed around PHIPA” posture that doesn’t require EHR-grade audits.
• Custodian accountability that stays clean and provable.
• A clear story for your College or a compliance officer about where each piece of your practice’s information lives.

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When you’re not sure

Rule of thumb: if it’s a message, a call, a file in transit, a video, or a numeric measurement result, it belongs in Rivet. If it would belong in the chart you’d hand to a covering colleague, it belongs in your EHR. When in doubt, export from Rivet and paste into your EHR. The artifact lives where it should, and the line stays clean.

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