Disposition a Surgical Patient After Theatre

When an operation is over, the patient has to go somewhere — usually a ward bed, or a higher-dependency area like the HDU or ICU. In Veona the surgeon records that decision on the case itself, and it flows through the same shared admission machinery that the emergency department and the wards use. There is no separate “theatre admission” to reconcile: the patient is placed into a real bed on the real ward board, so the receiving team sees them arrive.

Who / when: the surgeon, in the post-op phase of the operation, deciding where the patient recovers. We’ll follow Mr. Adeyemi dispositioning Mrs. Eze after her hernia repair.

The words you’ll need:

• Disposition — the decision about where the patient goes after theatre.
• HDU / ICU — High Dependency Unit and Intensive Care Unit: wards for patients who need closer monitoring than a general ward provides.
• Admission — the system’s record of an inpatient stay, tied to a bed. The same shared admission is used across the emergency department, the wards and theatre, so a patient is never tracked in two places.

1. Surgeon — open the case from Theatre → Live Board or Theatre → Theatre List to reach its peri-operative record, and go to the “Post-op” phase tab.
2. Surgeon — record the patient’s recovery status, then set the disposition field to where she is going — a ward, the HDU or the ICU.
3. Surgeon — press “Save phase”. Veona routes the disposition through the shared admission: the patient is placed into the destination as an inpatient stay, exactly as a ward or emergency admission would be.
4. Receiving ward team — Mrs. Eze now appears on the destination’s Ward → Ward Board and her bed shows as occupied on Ward → Bed Map, ready for the ward team to take over her care.

Note

This is the same admission spine used everywhere in Veona — there is no parallel “theatre patient” record. Whether a patient is admitted from casualty, from a clinic, or from theatre, they land in one bed on one board, so nothing has to be reconciled afterwards.

Tip

If the receiving ward needs a free bed chosen explicitly, the ward team completes the bed placement on Ward → Admit — see Admit a Patient to a Ward Bed. Either way, the patient is on the shared admission and visible on the ward board.

What happens next

Mrs. Eze is now an inpatient on her destination ward, and her care passes to the ward team. From here they pick up the inpatient journey: recording observations with an early-warning score, giving any medication on the ward MAR, and eventually discharging her and freeing the bed. Her operative note from theatre stays signed and locked on her record throughout.

Follow the trail

• Previous: Sign the Peri-Operative Record
• Next: Admit a Patient to a Ward Bed
• Related: Schedule a Theatre Case Without Double-Booking
• Related: Log Theatre Consumables and Draw Down Stock