Quick Start — Patient Flow Checklist
| # | Who | Action |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Nurse | Open Nurse Station → Register patient → Assign triage category |
| 2 | Physician | Open Doctor Station → See queue → Examine + prescribe |
| 3 | Nurse | Record vital signs (BP/HR/RR/SpO2/Temp) |
| 4 | Pharmacist | Open Pharmacy → See pending → Confirm dispensing |
| 5 | Nurse / Admin | Confirm treatment complete → Register discharge |
These five steps are the basic patient flow. Surgery, transfusion, and evacuation are advanced workflows covered in later articles in this series.
Patient Journey: Mr. Zhang's Afternoon
It's 2 PM. A 45-year-old man is brought into the field medical station. A bookshelf fell on his right leg during an earthquake. He can't walk properly, and his right lower leg is visibly swollen.
Stop 1: Triage (Nurse Station)
Nurse Chen picks up her phone and opens the Nurse Station PWA.
She taps "New Patient" and enters basic information: name, age, sex. The system automatically generates a patient ID.
Next comes triage. Nurse Chen assesses the injury:
- Alert, airway clear
- Right lower leg swollen, suspected fracture
- Vital signs stable
She selects YELLOW (Delayed) — needs treatment, but not immediately life-threatening.
The system does two things automatically: creates the patient record and adds the patient to the physician's queue.
Stop 2: Physician Consultation (Doctor Station)
Dr. Wang opens the Doctor Station PWA. Mr. Zhang's name appears in the queue, tagged YELLOW.
He taps into the patient record and sees the triage findings already documented by the nurse. He proceeds with the physical exam:
- Tenderness at mid-shaft right tibia
- Significant swelling, no open wound
- Distal pulses intact
Dr. Wang records the diagnosis: "Suspected closed fracture, right tibia" and writes a prescription:
- Acetaminophen 500mg, every 6 hours, 10 tablets
- Short leg cast immobilization
The moment the prescription is submitted, it appears in the pharmacy's pending queue.
Stop 3: Vital Signs (Nurse Station)
Nurse Chen returns to Mr. Zhang to take vital signs:
- Blood pressure: 128/82 mmHg
- Heart rate: 88 bpm
- Respiratory rate: 18/min
- SpO2: 98%
- Temperature: 36.8°C
She enters the values in the Nurse Station PWA. If any value is abnormal (e.g., BP below 90/60), the system highlights it in red automatically.
Vital signs can be recorded multiple times. Each entry is timestamped, making it easy to review trends during shift handoffs.
Stop 4: Pharmacy Dispensing (Pharmacy PWA)
Pharmacist Li opens the Pharmacy PWA and sees a pending prescription: Mr. Zhang's Acetaminophen.
He verifies the prescription details, then taps "Dispense." The system automatically deducts 10 tablets of Acetaminophen from inventory.
If stock is insufficient, the system shows a warning but doesn't block dispensing — the pharmacist decides whether to dispense whatever is available.
An important safeguard: the same prescription cannot be dispensed twice. Even if the pharmacist accidentally taps confirm twice, inventory is only deducted once.
Stop 5: Discharge
Mr. Zhang has been casted and given pain medication. His condition is stable. The nurse marks discharge in the system, recording the discharge time and follow-up instructions.
If Mr. Zhang needs transfer to a rear hospital for further evaluation (e.g., X-ray to confirm the fracture), the workflow moves to the EMT Transfer Station — described in the next section.
Advanced: Receiving Casualties Evacuated from the Front Line
Sometimes patients don't walk in on their own. In military or large-scale disaster scenarios, casualties are evacuated from the front line through the LSCO system to the medical station.
When a field medic presses "Evacuate to Medical Station" in the LSCO system, here's what happens at the station:
- A new patient appears in the Nurse Station — tagged RED or STAT, highest priority
- Patient data is pre-filled — the TCCC casualty card and PFC care records from the front line are automatically imported
- The physician can view the field records directly — no need to re-ask about the injury history
From there, the workflow is the same as any patient: physician consultation → prescription/surgery → pharmacy/blood bank → discharge or further evacuation.
The difference is that this patient already has a complete field treatment record. The physician isn't starting from zero — they're picking up where the field medic left off.
For details on the front-line side (how to fill out TCCC cards, record PFC notes, request MEDEVAC), see Article 4 in this series.
Patient Evacuation (EMT Transfer Station)
When a patient needs to be transferred to another medical station or a rear hospital, the transfer team uses the EMT Transfer Station PWA.
The transfer workflow follows the ISBAR format:
| Item | Full Name | Content |
|---|---|---|
| I | Identify | Patient name, ID, age |
| S | Situation | Chief complaint, current status |
| B | Background | Medical history, allergies, medications |
| A | Assessment | Diagnosis, treatments given |
| R | Recommendation | Reason for transfer, suggested next steps |
After filling this out, select the destination station. The system tracks the transfer status until the receiving station confirms acceptance.
Frequently Asked Questions
Prescription submitted but the pharmacy can't see it? Make sure both the physician's and pharmacist's phones are connected to the same device's WiFi. If one is on an external network or a different device, the data won't sync.
Accidentally created a duplicate patient? Use the search function to find the existing patient record instead of creating a new one. The system supports both name search and ID search. If a duplicate already exists, contact the Admin role to resolve it.
Medicine inventory shows zero? Medicines need to be received into inventory first. Go to the Supply Station PWA to perform receiving, entering the medicine code and quantity. See Article 5 in this series for details.
Forgot to record vital signs? You can always add them retroactively. The Nurse Station PWA supports back-dated vital sign entries. The system records both the actual input time and the back-dated time for audit purposes.
Selected the wrong triage category — can I change it? Yes. Re-enter the patient record and update the triage level. The system preserves the original record; the new level overlays it, maintaining an audit trail.
Series Navigation
This is the second article in the xGrid Field Station Operations Guide series. Full series:
- Three Minutes to Online — From Power-On to a Fully Operational Station
- The Patient Journey — From Triage to Discharge (this article)
- Surgery and Transfusion — Managing Critical Cases
- LSCO Battlefield Medicine — A Field Medic's Operations Manual
- Daily Operations — Inventory, Blood Bank, and Shift Handoffs
This covers the basic patient flow. If the patient needs surgery or a blood transfusion, continue to Article 3.