The Inpatient Module manages beds, patients and stays. Load the OpenEMR system with Admin or Physician rights.
After clicking on the Patient/Client option, the new ítems appear in the bottom. In this image we show the options offered to the Administrator user:
- Inpatient options / A home page for the new options. It lists the reports that any user can run.
- New bed/ It lets you create new beds, in different areas, floors or rooms. The beds can have attributes like male/female, TV or oxygen. Other features are possible with customization,
- Assign patient bed/ Associates a patient already in the OpenEMR system to an empty bed. It records the entry date.
- Assign patient bed – Clinical/ This is a regular LBF form, which records data outside the inpatient system, like reason for the inpatient stay, the entering doctor, diagnosis and other data.
- Change patient bed/ It changes the bed, for same-day changes, without changing the stay number.
- Release patient from bed/ It finishes the stay in bed
- Edit beds/ Allows to change bed number, floor, room, área and attributes, like gender, TV or Oxygen. The only item that never changes is the Bed ID.
- Inpatient list/ Lists all the current inpatients, with associated data, including cost.
- Release list/ Lists all the already released patients, with associated data, including cost.
- Free beds/ Lists the free beds.
- Patient report/ Lists patients by name
- Area-floor report/ / Lists patients by area and floor.
These are the options available for Phsysician users: (but not for Clinician, Accountant and Receptionist).
These are only reports, because these users can not modify beds or inpatient status.
Create beds
Beds have 2 numbers, one is the Bed ID, a unique number for every bed in the institution.
Beds have also a number for each room, usually within 2 and 4. The rooms are usually either male or female, but the attribute belongs to the bed. The same happens with TV and Oxygen.
Edit beds
Rooms are distributed in Floors, and Floors in Areas. Example of areas are General, Emergency Room, Intensive Care, Surgery, Operating Room are others.
Beds can be edited to modify any value.
The beds can be edited after creation, using an option in the menu. The beds will appear in a list as shown in the image:
All the bed data will appear in the listing, and two icons on the right allow changes: a pencil for changes, an a cross for deleting.
Assign a bed to a patient
When a patient enters a bed, he changes his status to inpatient. The menu allows selection of a patient, using a popup menu that appears after clicking into the Patient Name box.
There are three kind of patient status: ‘Already an inpatient‘, ‘Never an inpatient‘ and ‘Released before‘. The first kind patient cannot be assigned to a bed again, and an error will appear upon attempt. The other two kinds of patients can be selected for a new inpatient stay.
A patient that was previously released from a bed can be retrieved from the list and start a new inpatient stay, like the image shows:
In order to assign him a bed again, for a new inpatient stay, the Release Date box must be cleaned, discarding the previous release date.
Inpatient List
After assignment of a bed to a patient, the Inpatient list shows the updated data:
There are also details of every inpatient, including the current cost of bed occupation.
Release a patient from bed
When the patient is released from a bed stops being an inpatient and becomes an external patient again. The form only requires a patient name and a release date. The bed, stay number and entry date are automatically filled.
Clicking the ‘Patient name‘ box makes a popup box appear, with all the inpatient data. You can can then choose the inpatient to be released.
After a patient is released, you can check the ‘Release list’ report and the released patient will show up.
The free bed report is constantly updated. You can check how beds are occupied after bed assignment, and how they go empty again after patient release.
Single patient details
There are two reports that focus on all the data for a single patient: Patient report and Area-floor report. The patient report brings current and released inpatients in alphabetic order:
Selecting a patient brings his current data.
The option Area-floor report brings data ordered by area and floor. It is designed for Floor Managers that need to keep updated date of the patients under their control.
Pulsing the Up or Down key shows all the data, one by one, making easy to find the desired unit.
There are several standard LBF forms that are being created or adapted to provide more features to the Inpatient module.
Download the PDF version of this document, describing the Inpatient Module for OpenEMR
Download a PowerPoint presentation at https://free-emr-system.com/Inpatient Module.pps
See a video in YouTube with the features of our inpatient module for OpenEMR