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Inpatient stay — admission, leave, discharge

The record of a patient's hospitalization on a ward: admission with a diagnosis and a bed, leave, transfer between wards, discharge and the Barthel scale.

Required permissions:
Clinic AdminPractitioner
Reviewed: 2026-08-24

An Admission is the record of one hospitalization: who is lying in, on which ward, since when, in which bed and in what state they were discharged. A patient can have only one open stay at a time — Heltio enforces that at admission.

The whole Hospital section works only at facilities of type Hospital. At other practices the screen is visible but greyed out, with a Hospital feature notice. You cannot switch the facility type yourself — Heltio support enables it.

Open the Ward

How to do it

01

Choose the ward

In the side menu: Hospital → Ward. At the top of the screen Select ward switches between the facility's wards, and next to it stands the occupancy in the form 3 / 12 beds. The three tabs below are Beds, Inpatients and Therapy orders.

02

Admit a patient

The Admit button opens the Admit patient dialog. You fill in:

  • Patient and Ward — required.
  • Bed — optional. If you leave Assign later, the stay is created without a bed and you fill it in whenever you like.
  • Admission date — today by default.
  • Referring physician and Admission diagnosis (ICD-10).
  • Barthel score on admission — 0–100.

You confirm with the Admit patient button; Heltio acknowledges with Patient admitted.

03

Run the stay from the Inpatients list

The Inpatients tab is the list of the ward's current patients with the columns Current bed, Status and Admission date. The row menu offers: View admission, Assign bed (or Change bed), Mark on leave, Return from leave, Transfer and Discharge.

The stay status takes four values: Admitted, On leave, Discharged, Transferred.

04

Open the stay record

Clicking a row or an occupied bed in the grid opens the Admission record. It has three tabs:

  • Overview — the ward, the current bed, the status, the admission and discharge dates, the referring physician, the diagnosis.
  • Bed history — every assignment with a fromto range, the current one marked present.
  • Outcomes — the outcome measures of the stay, Barthel included.
05

Transfer to another ward

Transfer patient requires a Target ward; the Target bed (optional) can be left out. The dialog reminds you that The stay episode is continuous — same admission ID — a transfer neither closes the hospitalization nor starts a new one, so the history stays in one place.

06

Discharge

Discharge opens the Discharge patient dialog with the warning This will close the stay and free bed. You give the Discharge date and the Barthel score on discharge, and confirm with Discharge. Heltio acknowledges with Patient discharged, and the stay record goes read-only with a This stay was discharged on banner.

The Barthel scale on a neurological ward

On a ward with the Neurological inpatient profile, Heltio enables the Barthel requirement automatically at admission — the stay record then shows Barthel gate required. Four messages describe the state of the requirement: Entry + exit missing, Entry missing, Exit missing, Barthel complete.

The ward screen also carries a Neuro stays missing Barthel panel with a Record now button next to every missing measurement. When everything is filled in, the panel says All neuro stays have a documented Barthel.

The requirement can be switched on and off by hand on the stay record — the change is acknowledged with Barthel gate updated and goes into the audit log.

When something goes wrong

Error

Patient already has an open admission

What this means: This patient is already hospitalized — including when they are lying on another ward of the same facility.

What to do: Find the existing stay in the **Inpatients** list, discharge it, or use **Transfer** instead of a new admission.
Error

That bed is already occupied. Please select a different bed.

What this means: Somebody took that bed between the dialog opening and your save.

What to do: The list of free beds refreshes itself after this message — pick another one, or leave **Assign later**.
Error

Discharge date cannot be before the admission date

What this means: The discharge date you typed falls before the admission date recorded on the stay.

What to do: Check the admission date in the **Overview** tab and correct the discharge date.
Warning

This admission is already closed

What this means: The stay was discharged in the meantime — usually from a second device or by another member of the team.

What to do: Refresh the screen. A discharged stay is not reopened — you create a new stay through **Admit**.
Warning

Failed to set patient on leave. Please try again.

What this means: The leave record did not reach the server; the list reverts to its state before the click.

What to do: Repeat **Mark on leave**. The same message on the way back reads *Failed to return patient from leave.*
Warning

Failed to load ward data

What this means: The bed list or the patient list did not load.

What to do: Click **Retry** next to the message.

Who has access

Clinic Admin Practitioner

The whole clinical team of a ward can see the patient list and the bed grid — from the coordinator down to a trainee and read-only clinical access.

Admitting, assigning a bed, leave, transfer and discharge are reserved for the Owner, the Administrator and a Coordinator. Everyone else sees those actions greyed out, with the hint Requires coordinator role.

In the mobile app the ward is available read-only as My ward patients, offline included. Admission and discharge can only be done in the browser — the screen says so outright: Open Heltio on the web to admit or discharge patients.

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