Tracking Board Functionality > Patient Location Maintenance > Discharging Patients from the Tracking Board

Discharging the patient removes them from the Tracking Board and provides the ability to enter appropriate discharge information in the system. Additionally, the discharge process provides the opportunity to address any incomplete areas of the patient's chart through the Discharge Checklist.

1.	Double-click an occupied room on the Tracking Board. This displays the Patient Location Maintenance screen.

2.	Select Discharge.

If the Patient Discharge screen is displayed, proceed to step 4. If Discharge Checklist screen is displayed, it means the Discharge Checklist has been activated and the patient's chart is at an incomplete status. The Discharge Checklist must be addressed and Completed (or marked as Complete) before you can access the Patient Discharge screen. See Addressing the Discharge Checklist for more information.

4.	Complete the fields on the Patient Discharge screen as follows:

o	Current Room: This field auto-populates with the patient's current location.

o	Date: The date defaults to the current date. If necessary, use the calendar to modify the date or manually enter in mmddyyyy format.

o	Time: The discharge time defaults to the current time.

o	Code: Use the look-up to select the discharge code from the Discharge Code Table.

NOTE: If one of the four "Expired" codes is selected (Expired, Expired at Home, Expired in a Medical Facility such as a Hospital SNF ICF, or Expired Place Unknown), a Cause of Death field will display. The Discharge option on the action bar will be unavailable and the patient account will not be able to be discharged until a cause of death has been selected. Select the magnifying glass icon in the Cause of Death field to select the cause of death from the Diagnosis List screen. The Cause of Death may be searched by Description or ICD-10 Code via the radio button filters. Double-click the appropriate cause of death or highlight and select Continue to populate the Cause of Death field. A free-text cause of death may be entered by selecting Other Description in the Action Bar after entering the desired description in the Search field. The ICD-9 code, ICD-10 code, and SNOMED code will display below the Cause of Death.

o	Condition: Use the look-up to select the condition code from the Condition Code Table.

o	Initials: This field auto-populates with the logged-in user's initials.

5.	Select Discharge to save the information and exit the screen.

All fields are required and must be addressed before Discharge is selected. The ER Log in the patient's Census screen will be updated to reflect on the ER Log Report. If the back arrow is selected selecting Discharge, the message "Exit without discharging?" will appear. Select "Yes" to exit without discharging the patient or "No" remain on the screen.

If a patient is discharged in error, select the Charts option and look up the patient's visit. Search for and select the patient's visit and go to Location Maintenance on the patient chart. Select Discharge Options from the Location Maintenance Menu screen and then select the Reverse Discharge option. Selecting this option will reverse the discharge and place the patient back onto the Tracking Board into the same room.

NOTE: These options may only be selected for patients that are located in an emergency department or clinic. If they are selected for other patients, a prompt appears indicating the patient must be in the emergency department or a clinic.