Question: When discharge planning, how can arrangements for home care be ordered for inpatients prior to discharge?
Context: The requested home care services will be fulfilled outside the current inpatient admission. Consequently, these orders are not available in the inpatient orders catalogue, and physicians may wonder how specific requests can be placed.
Answer: Home care referrals and service requests can be entered as "external orders" via a tab within the Orders activity in an inpatient encounter. If proximate to discharge, they can also be entered within the Discharge Orders portion of the Discharge Navigator.
In many cases, these orders are entered by transition coordinators or nurses, with a prescriber co-sign. Specific medication monitoring, professional service and other requests need to be entered with a Home Care Service Order. Step-by-step instructions are provided: