What is Patient Status?

Introduction

Patient Status is a core feature in CAREFUL that represents where a patient is in their journey through your healthcare organization. It provides instant visibility of patient flow and helps teams identify patients at specific stages of care, from arrival through to discharge.

Before You Start

No special permissions required. All users can view patient statuses. To update a patient's status, you must be a member of the team that the patient belongs to, and the patient must not be in "Inactive" status.

Understanding Patient Status

What Patient Status Shows

Each patient is assigned a status that represents their current stage in the care pathway. Your administrator configures these statuses to reflect your organization's specific workflow.

Common examples include:

• Expected
• Arrived
• Reviewed
• Admitted
• Ready for Discharge
• Discharged

The exact statuses in your organization may differ based on your local configuration.

How Status is Used

Patient Flow Management: Statuses help managers and clinicians quickly understand where patients are in their journey without needing to read detailed notes.

Filtering and Sorting: In Team View and Organization View, you can filter patient lists by status to find all patients at a particular stage (e.g., all patients "Ready for Discharge").

Visual Indicators: Each status displays as a colored badge on the patient profile, making it easy to scan lists and identify patients at specific stages.

Special Statuses

Three standard statuses exist across all CAREFUL organizations:

No Status: The patient has not yet been assigned a status. This is equivalent to an unknown status and appears when a patient is first added to the system.

Deceased: Indicates the patient has died. This status is available in all organizations and cannot be removed or renamed. Setting a patient to Deceased triggers a confirmation warning to prevent accidental selection.

Inactive: The patient is no longer active in your organization, meaning no teams or individuals are responsible for their care. You cannot manually set a patient to Inactive -- this happens automatically when a patient is discharged from their only team. Inactive patients cannot have their status changed. This status only appears as a filter on the My Organization page, not in Team Views.

Updating Patient Status

Steps to Change a Patient's Status

1. Navigate to the patient's profile page
2. Locate the Status field in the patient profile section
3. Hover over the Status field -- a pencil (edit) icon appears
4. Click the pencil icon
5. The Update patient status for [Patient Name] dialog opens
6. Review the Current status field (read-only, shows the existing status)
7. Click the New status dropdown and select the desired status
8. (Optional) Set a Date of change if you need to backdate the status change
   • Click the calendar icon to select a date
   • Click the clock icon to quickly set the current date and time
   • Note: You cannot select a future date
9. Review any warning messages that appear (see below)
10. Click Submit
11. The dialog closes and the patient's status updates immediately

Date of Change (Optional)

By default, status changes are recorded with the current date and time. If you need to record when a status change actually occurred (for example, if you're updating the system retrospectively), use the Date of change (optional) field.

The date picker uses the format: day-month-year hour:minute (e.g., 15-03-2026 14:30).

Validation and Warnings

CAREFUL includes safeguards to prevent errors when changing patient status:

Same Status Error: If you select a status that the patient already has, you'll see: "Error: It looks like the patient is already in this status. Please choose another status." You must select a different status to proceed.

Future Date Error: If you enter a date in the future, you'll see: "This date time must not be in the future." Adjust the date to today or earlier.

Deceased Status Warning: If you select the Deceased status, you'll see: "It looks like you are setting the patient status to be Deceased. Please make sure this is definitely what you want to do before you submit." Review carefully before proceeding.

Status Regression Warning: If you select a status that comes earlier in your organization's status sequence (moving the patient backward), you'll see: "It looks like you are moving the patient status back one or more steps. Please make sure this is definitely what you want to do before you submit." This is allowed but requires confirmation.

Tips

• Check the current status first: Before updating, review what status the patient currently has to ensure you're making the right change
• Use backdating carefully: The Date of change field is useful for catching up on retrospective updates, but be accurate to maintain audit integrity
• Status order matters: Your organization's statuses have a defined sequence. Moving backward in this sequence triggers a warning
• Inactive patients: If you don't see the edit icon, check if the patient is Inactive -- these patients cannot have their status changed
• Team filters: Use status as a filter in Team View to quickly find all patients at a specific stage (e.g., filter for "Ready for Discharge" to prioritize discharge planning)

Related Features

• What is Patient Risk Flag? -- Learn about the complementary risk indicator system
• How to Filter Patients -- Use status filters to manage your patient lists
• Patient Audit Log -- View the complete history of status changes for a patient