Admit a Patient to a Ward Bed
When a patient needs to stay overnight — from the emergency department, from theatre, or as a planned admission — a ward nurse admits them into a free bed. That single action does three things at once: it occupies the bed, it opens an encounter (the system’s record of this stay, so every note, order and observation hangs off it), and it places the patient on the ward board where the whole team can see them.
Who / when: the ward nurse (or anyone holding the admit permission), at the moment a patient arrives on the ward and a bed is ready for them. We’ll follow Nurse Grace admitting Mr. Okafor, who has just been sent up from casualty.
- Ward nurse — open Ward → Admit. A short admission form opens.
- Ward nurse — pick Mr. Okafor in the patient field. This is a searchable picker: start typing his name or his UHID (Unique Health ID — his permanent hospital number, looks like
VNA-…) and select him from the list. You never type a patient’s details twice; he was registered once and is found here. - Ward nurse — choose the consulting consultant (the doctor who will own his care on the ward), the ward, and a free bed. The bed picker only offers beds that are genuinely empty, so two patients can never be put in the same bed.
- Ward nurse — submit the admission. Mr. Okafor now appears on Ward → Ward Board, his chosen bed flips to Occupied on Ward → Bed Map, and his ward stay (encounter) is open.
What happens next
Section titled “What happens next”Mr. Okafor is now a live inpatient. His name carries everything forward: the payer he was registered under (self-pay or an insurer) is inherited automatically, so no one re-enters it, and a bed-day charge begins to accrue quietly against his stay. From here the ward team starts his care — recording observations, working the rounds board, and administering his medicines on the ward MAR (Medication Administration Record). When he is well enough to go home, the same ward stay is closed at discharge, which frees his bed.