A bed attribute refers to a specific characteristic or requirement associated with a hospital bed, such as Negative Airflow, Isolation, or proximity to the Nurses' Station, used to ensure patients are placed in beds that meet their medical needs. These attributes are primarily utilized by clinical staff like nurses and bed managers during patient placement or reassignment to match a patient’s needs with an appropriate bed, ensuring optimal care and safety. For example, a patient with an infectious condition like MRSA would require a bed with an Isolation attribute. Bed attributes are critical because they help maintain patient safety, enhance operational efficiency, and ensure compliance with hospital care standards. They are selected and managed within the Patient/Placement Details form when creating or editing placement requests and can also be adjusted from the electronic bedboard® or list views, provided the user has the necessary permissions.
Bed Attributes are assigned and modified in the Patient/Placement Details Form, on list views, and on the Electronic Bedboard®. Bed Attributes are created, edited, and linked to patient attributes from the Capacity Management Administration page in the Bed Attribute dictionary.
How Bed Attributes Work
Functionality
The Bed Attributes column displays any special bed characteristics that a patient requires.
Custom bed attributes can be created, edited, or deleted from the Bed Attribute dictionary.
Examples of custom bed attributes are Negative Airflow Room and Near Nurses' Station.
You may NOT change any standard bed attributes, such as accommodation needed, bed size needed, hospital service, or level of care.
Standard bed attribute categories with examples:
Hospital Service (for example, Chemotherapy)
Level of Care (for example, Critical)
Discipline (for example, Restricted)
The following Bed Attributes are associated with each bed:
Accommodation (Accom.) Needed (for example, Private or Semi-Private)
Bed Size Needed (for example, Crib or Adult)
Bed attributes can be selected on the Patient/Placement Details form when a placement request is created or edited or selected in the Bed column of a list view.
Bed Attributes are used in conjunction with the patient attributes to match a patient with an appropriate bed.
For example, a patient with a MRSA patient attribute could be placed in a bed that has an Isolation bed attribute.
The Change Bed Attributes window displays the bed name, abbreviation or ID code as well as the bed accommodation type (for example, whether the room is private or semi-private).
To change bed attributes from the electronic bedboard® view, you must have the permissions noted in Accessing the electronic bedboard® view and in Configuring the electronic bedboard® view so that you can open the electronic bedboard® view.
You must also have the Change Location Attributes permission.
In the Bed Attributes section of the Patient/Placement Details form, you may select the attributes that apply to the patient.
When you select Adv Search to assign a bed to this patient, the selected bed and patient attributes will be considered so that an optimal bed can be assigned.
The bed attributes that you can choose from are entered in the Bed Attribute dictionary by an administrator.
The administrator may link bed attributes to patient attributes so that if you select a certain patient attribute, a certain bed attribute will be selected automatically.
For example, the patient attribute Falls Risk might be linked automatically to the bed attribute Near Nurses' Station so that if you select Falls Risk as a patient attribute, Near Nurses' Station will be selected automatically as a bed attribute.
Permissions Required
If you have the Maintain Patient/Placement Details permission with View rights, you may access and view the Patient/Placement Details form, but you may not make changes unless you have specific permissions to change individual items. For example, if you have the Edit Patient Name permission, you may change the patient name.
If you have the Maintain Patient/Placement Details permission with Edit rights, you may access the Patient/Placement Details form and make changes. You must have individual permissions to make some specific changes. For example, you must have the Edit Patient Name permission to change the patient name and the Edit Patient Associated Physicians permission to add or change physician information.
If you have the Create New PreAdmits permission, you may create a new preadmit record.
Change Bed Attributes
Do one of the following:
Access a list view and select a unit.
Access the electronic bedboard and configure it.
In a list view in the Bed column, click the bed identifier, and then on the menu that appears, click Location Attributes. On the electronic bedboard® view, click a cell containing a bed identifier to display a menu (for example, click a cell with bed identifier 124876A), and then click Location Attributes.
When the Location Attributes dialog box appears, do the following:
Click the plus sign (+) beside the bed attribute category to display a list of bed attributes within that category.
Select the check boxes for the appropriate bed attributes (for example, Hardwire Monitor, Telemetry).
Click Save.
On the bedboard, move your mouse over the cell containing the bed identifier to view the selected bed attributes.
Set Bed Attributes
In the Bed Attributes section of the Patient/Placement Details Form, for each of the standard attribute categories listed below, do the following:
Select an attribute (for example, for Level of Care, select Critical).
Select whether the attribute is preferred (P) or required (R).
In the Bed Attributes section, select custom bed attributes (such as Lead-Lined or Negative Airflow).
Click the magnifying glass icon.
Click the plus sign (+) beside the bed attribute category to display a list of bed attributes within that category.
Select the check boxes for the appropriate bed attributes (for example, Hardwire Monitor, Telemetry).
In the list next to the check box, select whether the attribute is preferred (P) or required (R).
Click Save to place the selected custom bed attributes in the Bed Custom Attributes box.
Click Save on the Patient/Placement Details window.
Manage Bed Attributes in the Dictionary
Go to Admin > Settings > Capacity Management > Dictionary Management > Bed Attribute.
Add a Bed Attribute
Click Add.
In the new row that appears, select Bed Attribute from the Category drop-down.
Enter a name for the Bed Attribute.
Enter the ADT Tag Name and Value if available.
Click to enable the Show on bedboard toggle if desired.
If the bed attribute should be shown on the bedboard, select the cell that it should appear in from the Cell # drop-down.
Click Save.
Delete a Bed Attribute
Check the check box next to the bed attribute(s) to delete.
Click Delete Selected Records.
In the prompt that appears, click OK.
The bed attribute will no longer appear in the list and a message will appear confirming the deletion.
Edit a Bed Attribute
Locate the row of the Bed Attribute whose values need to be changed.
Make the desired changes.
Click Save.