Create your facility
A facility is the hospital, clinic, health centre or dispensary that everything in BridgeERP HMS belongs to. Before you register a single patient you create your facility, divide it into departments and locations, set the company branding and currency, configure record numbering, and load the insurance schemes — NHIF and SHIF (SHA) included — that your patients will pay through. This page walks the administrator through that setup.
Where to find it
The master data lives under one configuration menu:
- HMS Core → Configuration → Facilities — create and edit each hospital site.
- HMS Core → Configuration → Departments — the clinical and operational units inside a facility.
- HMS Core → Configuration → Insurance Schemes and Insurance Policies — the payers and member policies.
- HMS Core → Configuration → HMS Core Settings — suite-wide options.
| Menu path | Opens | Use it for |
|---|---|---|
| HMS Core → Configuration → Facilities | Facility records | Creating each hospital / clinic site |
| HMS Core → Configuration → Departments | Department records | Clinical and operational units inside a site |
| HMS Core → Configuration → Staff | Staff directory | Assigning heads of department and clinicians |
| HMS Core → Configuration → Insurance Schemes | Payer records | Configuring NHIF, SHIF, corporate and private payers |
| HMS Core → Configuration → Insurance Policies | Member policies | Linking insured patients to a scheme |
| Settings → Users & Companies → Companies | Company records | Branding, currency and fiscal configuration |
Step 1 — create the facility
Open HMS Core → Configuration → Facilities and click New.
- Enter the facility Name and a short Code (used in patient and visit numbering).
- Choose the Facility Type — Hospital, Clinic, Health Centre, Dispensary, Standalone Laboratory or Standalone Pharmacy.
- Set the Company the facility trades under and its Currency (for example KES).
- Fill in the contact and address block — phone, email, website, street, city, County / State and country.
- Record the License Number and Regulator, and the date the site Opened On.
- Upload the facility Logo. Save.
If you run more than one site, repeat for each. A multi-branch group can also use the Branch field to label sub-sites under one facility record.
| Facility Type | Choose for |
|---|---|
| Hospital | Full-service inpatient + outpatient hospital |
| Clinic | Outpatient clinic or practice |
| Health Centre | Community health centre |
| Dispensary | Primary-level dispensary |
| Standalone Laboratory | Diagnostic lab without clinical services |
| Standalone Pharmacy | Retail / dispensing pharmacy |
| Facility field | Meaning | Required |
|---|---|---|
| Name / Code | Site name and short code used in numbering | Yes |
| Facility Type | Hospital, clinic, health centre, dispensary, lab or pharmacy | Yes |
| Company / Currency | Legal entity and trading currency | Yes |
| License Number / Regulator | Regulatory registration details | Recommended |
| Logo | Image used on the facility’s documents | Optional |
Step 2 — departments and locations
Open HMS Core → Configuration → Departments and create one record per unit. Each department belongs to a facility, has a Code, a Department Type, an optional Head of department, a Phone Extension and a free-text Physical Location for wayfinding. Departments can be nested — set a Parent to model, say, several clinics under an Outpatient division.
| Department Type | Use for |
|---|---|
| Clinical / Outpatient | Consulting clinics, OPD rooms |
| Diagnostic / Imaging | Radiology, ultrasound, ECG |
| Pharmacy | Dispensing points |
| Laboratory | Sample collection and analysis |
| Administration | Records, billing office, management |
| Emergency / A&E | Casualty and triage |
| Ward / Inpatient | Admission wards |
| Operating Theatre | Surgical suites |
Step 3 — branding, currency and fiscal setup
Each facility is tied to a Company; the company carries the legal name, address, tax registration and the logo that prints on receipts and reports. Set these from the platform Settings → Users & Companies → Companies, then make sure the facility points at the right company. The Currency set on the company governs how bills and payments are denominated, and the company’s fiscal configuration (chart of accounts, tax rates) is what the Billing app posts against.
Step 4 — record numbering and defaults
The foundation seeds the numbering sequences the suite uses, so patients, visits and appointments get a clean reference out of the box: patient numbers in the form PAT/year/000001, visits as VST/year/000001 and appointments as APT/year/000001. You can review or adjust prefixes and padding in the platform sequence settings if your hospital has its own numbering convention.
Under HMS Core → Configuration → HMS Core Settings set the operating defaults for the suite, including the default facility new records attach to, whether a duplicate national ID is allowed at registration, whether patients may self-book on the portal, and the units used for temperature, weight and height in triage. Set these once so every desk behaves consistently.
Step 5 — insurance schemes (NHIF / SHA)
The foundation ships with a starter set of schemes already loaded under HMS Core → Configuration → Insurance Schemes, including Self-Pay, NHIF, SHIF (the Social Health Insurance Fund under the Social Health Authority) and several private insurers. Open each to review and complete it:
| Field | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Name / Code | The payer and its short code (e.g. NHIF, SHIF) |
| Type | Self-pay, NHIF, SHIF, corporate or private |
| Claim Format | How claims are submitted — paper, portal or API |
| Pre-auth Required | Whether the scheme needs prior authorisation |
| Claim Turnaround Days | Expected days to reimbursement |
| Max Copay % | The patient’s share, if any |
For each insured patient you then create a member Policy under HMS Core → Configuration → Insurance Policies, linking the patient to a scheme with their membership number. At registration the receptionist selects this policy as the visit’s payment route.
Roles & access
Creating and editing facilities, departments and schemes is reserved for the Administrator and Manager roles. Clinical and front-desk roles see facilities and departments as read-only reference data when they register patients or route work. Facility records are also company-scoped, so a user only sees the facilities belonging to the company they are signed into.