HMIS module
IPD management software
from admission to discharge.
An inpatient stay generates more records than any other hospital workflow — and they are the ones most often spread across a bed board, a nursing file and a billing register. The IPD module keeps the admission as the spine everything else attaches to.
In short
IPD management is the handling of an inpatient episode: admission, ward and bed allocation, daily nursing and medical documentation, procedures, transfers, discharge and the bill for the stay. In Polynexus HMIS the admission record is the anchor — nursing notes, medication administration, progress notes, theatre and ICU episodes, and the final bill all attach to it, so the stay can be reconstructed from one place.
Capabilities
What the IPD module covers
Wards, rooms & beds
Ward, room and bed masters define the hospital’s real capacity. Allocation happens against those records, which is what makes occupancy reporting possible.
Records: Ward, Room, Bed, BedAllocation.
Admission
Admission from OPD, from the emergency department via an admit-to-IPD action, or as a planned surgical case — all producing the same admission record.
Records: Admission, EDVisit.
Nursing documentation
Nursing notes, medication administration records and intake/output charts filed per shift against the admitted patient, rather than kept on paper at the station.
Records: NursingNote, MedicationAdministration, IntakeOutput.
Doctor progress notes
Rounds documented as progress notes with an explicit finalise step, so the record shows what was signed and what is still in draft.
Records: DoctorProgressNote.
Ward transfers
Movement between wards is a record that goes through approval, keeping both the clinical trail and the cost-centre attribution intact.
Records: WardTransfer.
Theatre & ICU episodes
Surgery requests schedule OT time with a pre-operative checklist, anaesthesia record, operative note and consumable or implant usage. ICU cases add an ICU admission, daily progress notes and ventilator logs.
Records: SurgeryRequest, OTSchedule, PreOpChecklist, AnaesthesiaRecord, OperativeNote, ICUAdmission, VentilatorLog.
Blood bank
Donor records, blood unit inventory, cross-match requests and transfusions kept against the same admission rather than in a separate register.
Records: Donor, BloodUnit, CrossMatchRequest, Transfusion.
Discharge
Discharge releases the bed and produces a discharge summary that must be finalised before it counts as complete.
Records: DischargeSummary.
Workflow
An inpatient stay, step by step
- 01
Admission
The patient is admitted from OPD, from the emergency department via an admit-to-IPD action, or as a planned surgical case. The admission record becomes the spine everything else attaches to.
- 02
Bed allocation
A bed is allocated from the ward, room and bed masters, so occupancy is a consequence of real allocations rather than a manually maintained board.
- 03
Daily care
Nursing notes, medication administration and intake/output charts are filed each shift. Doctors add progress notes and finalise them. ICU cases additionally carry daily progress notes and ventilator logs.
- 04
Procedures and transfers
Surgery requests schedule OT time with a pre-operative checklist, anaesthesia record, operative note and consumable or implant usage. Ward transfers go through an approval step.
- 05
Discharge
Discharge runs off the admission, releases the bed and produces a discharge summary that is explicitly finalised, so an in-progress draft is never mistaken for a signed document.
- 06
Final billing and claim
The bill covers the whole stay — bed charges, procedures, pharmacy, diagnostics. Where a TPA is involved, the pre-authorisation and claim are handled against the same admission.
Reporting
What the inpatient data supports
- Bed occupancy and ICU occupancy — derived from live allocations.
- OT utilisation — how much of the scheduled theatre time is actually used.
- Lab turnaround time — how long inpatient investigations take to come back.
- Daily MIS — a preview and a logged daily operational summary across departments.
Stay-level charges flow into billing and TPA claims from the same records, so the final bill reflects bed days, procedures, diagnostics and pharmacy as they were recorded.
FAQ
IPD management — common questions
- What does IPD management software cover?
- Everything between admission and discharge: allocating a bed from the ward and room masters, recording nursing care and medication administration each shift, doctor progress notes, ward transfers, any theatre or ICU episode, the discharge summary, and the final bill for the stay.
- How is bed occupancy calculated?
- From actual bed allocations against the ward, room and bed masters. Occupancy is a consequence of who is allocated where, so the bed occupancy and ICU occupancy reports reflect the current position rather than whatever was last written on a board.
- Are ward transfers controlled?
- Yes. A ward transfer is a record with an approval step, so a patient does not move between wards — and between cost centres — without it being authorised and logged.
- How does discharge work?
- Discharge runs off the admission record: it releases the bed and produces a discharge summary that is explicitly finalised. Until it is finalised it is a draft, which means an unsigned summary cannot be handed over as a completed one.
- Does ICU have its own records?
- Yes. ICU carries its own admission record, daily progress notes and ventilator logs, separate from general ward documentation, and feeds a dedicated ICU occupancy report.
Walk an admission through on a live system
Admit, allocate a bed, chart a shift, transfer a ward, discharge and bill — on your hospital's own ward structure.