Inpatient Information

The Inpatient tab lists any inpatient record that is associated with the selected patient. In addition, it provides the navigation (a) for creating new inpatient records if none exist currently or (b) for editing an existing ones.

To manage inpatient records:

Navigate to the patient demographic screens and select the appropriate patient.

NOTE – Inpatient records cannot be created without at least one active Case, and patients can have only one active inpatient record at a time.

Click the Inpatient tab, and do either of the following:

Click New as part of a new patient entry
Click the Edit link in the line item for an existing inpatient record.

Start Date: Enter a Start Date or click the Calendar button and choose a date visually.

The Start Date is used in combination with inpatient column to automatically place patients into patient column when an inpatient record is saved. You can save an inpatient record without a Start Date; however, that patient's information simply will not populate a column filter until a date is entered. Refer to the links provided for a complete discussion of the inpatient column filter.

The Start Date is not required by the program itself—it is required only in terms of how it is used in combination with the inpatient column filter. If necessary to the workflow in your organization, program administrators can configure it as a required field, which would ensure that an inpatient record cannot be saved without a Start Date..

End Date: Enter an End Date to close the inpatient record. Once closed, the inpatient information will no longer populate the demographic panel—i.e., the program uses the End Date as the mechanism for indicating that the patient no longer occupies a particular unit-room-bed combination. Additionally, the program uses the End Date to know when to stop displaying the patient in an inpatient column filter. See the "Workflow Considerations" section following for a discussion on managing inpatient records

Cases: Check the box next to each case to which the inpatient record applies. Not only is a case required to create an inpatient record, but none of the inpatient details even become available until a case has been created.
Description: Enter any description you require up to 100 characters.
Complete the following parameters according to the instruction provided:

Nursing Unit: This field is required to complete an inpatient record. It is also used as required filter criteria for any inpatient column filter.

Room: This and the remaining fields are not required to save the inpatient record. Room and Bed, however, are used as required filter criteria for inpatient column filters. Therefore, you may want to configure them as suggested or required in your registration workflow.

Bed

Diagnosis

Program

The options available in the previous drop-downs are configured in Data Maintenance > Inpatient Data. Please refer to the linked topic for a complete discussion about maintaining these.

Team: Click the drop-down and choose from among the options provided to assign the patient to an interdisciplinary team. Teams are used on the grid as filters so that resources who are members of team can quickly place the patients who are under their care into scheduling columns (see Teams).

Click Save to complete the inpatient data record. You will be returned to the main patient demographic screens.
Choose whether to Go to Grid after Save and then click Save again to complete the patient record.

Workflow Considerations

During the course of an inpatient stay, it is not unusual for a patient to be moved between units, rooms and beds, and your organization's workflow requirements will determine whether you want to retain a record of each location the patient was placed. Consider the following scenarios for managing the inpatient information.

Scenario 1: During the same inpatient stay, a patient occupies three different nursing units, hence 3 different rooms and beds. As the patient moves between one unit and the next you could close the existing inpatient record and then create a new record for the new unit and room-bed combination. The advantage of doing this is that it will preserve the "historical" record of where a patient was placed at a given moment in time in their stay. This is especially useful if you use inpatient column filters in that you can navigate to a particular day in question and get a concrete visual of which patient occupied a given space and of the scheduled treatment the patient received. In this scenario, a total of three separate inpatient records (with their own Start and End dates) would be created for the same stay.

Scenario 2: Take the same set of circumstances as in the first scenario, but rather than managing multiple inpatient records you simply edit the unit, room, and bed information as the patient is moved from one location to the other. The advantage of this scenario is that you have only one record to manage. However, you lose historical perspective of every unit, room, and bed combination except for the last one. So, as users navigate to past days on the grid, any inpatient columns that have defined will simply show the inpatient criteria for the particular column.

Some consideration, therefore, should be given in choosing the workflow that meets the needs of your organization.

Key Considerations

If an organization has not included the Inpatient feature in their sales agreement, the tab will not appear in patient demographics and you can ignore this discussion.
Excluding Description and Team, the remaining inpatient fields can be customized to more accurately reflect the needs of the organization. See Customizing System Labels.
In addition to Case, Description, and Nursing Unit, administrators have the option of setting the demographic fields and the Start Date as required. See Required or Suggested Data Entry Fields.
Two reports that help you manage your inpatient clients include, Inpatient History and Daily Inpatient Schedule.