Admit a patient

Admitting a patient opens a hospital stay. Once admitted, the patient appears on the ward board and you can write treatment orders for them. Use this for planned admissions and for emergency walk-ins who haven't been checked in.

Find the patient

1. Select Admit a Patient in the Hospital menu.
2. In Find patient / owner (name, phone, or email), start typing. Suggestions appear as you type. Without a search, the list shows the first 200 patients.
3. Choose the patient from the Patient list.
4. Select Continue to admit.

If the animal has never been seen here, select Register a new patient. After registering, you come straight back to admit them.

A patient recorded as deceased can't be admitted.

Fill in the admission

1. Under Visit anchor, choose Create a new visit now (ER walk-in — no prior check-in) or Admit against an existing visit. If you admit against an existing visit, pick it from Existing visit (if admitting against one).
2. For a new visit, choose a Triage level (new visit only): Red, Orange, Yellow or Green, most to least acute. Leave it at — Not triaged — if you haven't triaged yet. The ward board groups patients by this level.
3. Choose the Attending vet (optional).
4. Enter the Reason for admission (optional), for example "post-op monitoring".
5. Check Admitted at (practice local). It's filled in with the current time; change it if the patient came in earlier. Add any Notes (optional).
6. Select Admit patient.

Triage only applies to a new visit. If you admit against an existing visit, leave Triage level (new visit only) blank or you'll get an error.

Add a trauma score at admission

If your role can record trauma scores, the form also has a Trauma / neurologic score (ATT + mGCS) — optional panel. It sits alongside the triage level and doesn't replace it.

• Animal Trauma Triage (ATT) has six categories, each 0 to 3. Higher is worse.
• Modified Glasgow Coma Scale (mGCS) has three categories, each 1 to 6. Lower is worse.
• Each option shows the published grading criteria. Grade against the criteria, not the number.
• Pick an Assessment point, and optionally a Trauma mechanism (optional) and Score notes (optional).

Leave the panel blank to skip it. You can score any subset of categories; an incomplete scale is shown as incomplete rather than totalled. Scores and rechecks can be added later too (see Record a trauma or neurologic score).

After admitting

You'll see Admitted. with buttons to Enter treatment orders, Open flowsheet or View ward board. If you recorded a trauma score, its totals are shown too.

Next: Write treatment orders.