Front office / reception

Admit and discharge patients at a hospital desk, register test orders, print sample labels and hand over verified reports.

Front office / reception

Who this is for

You work at the admissions desk of a hospital or the reception of a diagnostic centre. Your role is Front office / reception. You register people: in a hospital you admit and discharge in-patients, and in both kinds of company you register lab and imaging orders and hand over finished reports. You don't collect samples or sign off results.

What you see

The fourth tab depends on your company type.

Your manager may also assign you a daily opening checklist, such as Front Desk & Waiting Area Check at a diagnostic centre.

Your day

1. Opening. In Tasks, run your opening checklist (for example Front Desk & Waiting Area Check).
2. All day. Admit patients (hospital) and register test orders. Print sample labels for walk-ins.
3. Report counter. Open Diagnostics → Ready and hand over verified reports as patients arrive.
4. Closing. Look at Diagnostics → Breached and tell the lab about anyone still waiting. Then cancel any no-show orders.

Step by step

Admit a patient (hospital)

1. Go to Patients and tap + Admit.
2. Enter Full name and UHID / MRN (required and unique), then the demographics and Attendant (name, phone).
3. Set Admitted on, Ward, Bed no., Attending doctor and Primary nurse (optional). Record Allergies if the patient knows of any.
4. Leave Start the standard care plan ticked so the ward's nursing checklists begin straight away.
5. Tap Admit patient. Then tap Bedside QR and Print so the ward can stick the code at the bed. The code holds no patient details.

To discharge, open the patient, tap Discharge, add a note and confirm. Open checklists are closed. Re-admit brings back a discharged patient. See wf-patient-stay for the whole stay.

Register a test order

1. Go to Diagnostics and tap + New order.
2. Patient: in a hospital, pick an admitted patient from the list to fill in their details, or leave Outside patient (not admitted). Fill in Patient name (required), Patient ID / UHID, Age, Gender, Phone and Referring doctor.
3. Order: choose Laboratory or Imaging. List the tests in Tests / studies requested (for example CBC, LFT, HbA1c).
4. Set Priority. The TAT target is shown next to each option: Routine · TAT 24h, Urgent · TAT 4h, STAT · TAT 1h.
5. Set Source: Walk-in, Home collection, OPD or IPD.
6. Add preparation notes (fasting, LMP, contrast allergy). Keep Attach the protocol checklist ticked.
7. Tap Register order. You'll see an accession number such as DX-000007, and the TAT clock starts.

Tip: When the protocol checklist is attached, it is assigned to you. Pass it to the collector: open it in Tasks, or ask a manager to reassign it.

Print the sample label

1. On the order page, tap Sample label. It opens in a new tab sized for 50 × 25 mm label printers.
2. Choose 1× to 4× copies (the default is 2), then tap Print.
3. The label shows a QR code, the accession number, name, ID, age and sex, the tests, the time and the priority (if not routine). Scanning the QR opens the order.

Hand over a report

1. Open Diagnostics and tap the Ready filter. It lists orders that have been verified by a pathologist or radiologist.
2. Check the patient's identity against the name and accession number, then open the order.
3. Tap Mark as delivered. The time is recorded and the order moves to Closed.

Edit or cancel an order

While an order is open, tap Edit to correct the details. If you change the priority, the TAT target is recalculated. To cancel, tap Reject / cancel (or Cancel for imaging), give a Reason such as Patient did not turn up or Duplicate order, and tap Close order.

What you can't do

Try it

• Hospital: sign in as front-office@hospital.test and tap Patients → + Admit.
• Diagnostic centre: sign in as front-office@diagnostics.test, open Diagnostics → Ready and deliver Arjun Nair's report.

The password for both is password. Related: Register test orders, wf-lab-test-order.