# Listen for hospital admission updates

You may want to listen for hospital admission updates to find out about movements within a specific hospital. 

## Use cases

This API action may be a good fit for your organization if you want to be notified about these events in your connection’s EHR system:

- A patient is admitted to the hospital.
- A patient is transferred to a different department of the hospital.
- A patient is discharged from the hospital.

A notification is triggered anytime there's an admission, transfer, or discharge for an individual patient within the hospital.

## Supported systems

You can receive notifications like this with the Redox FHIR API.

Your connection's system can push notifications with a polling or subscription type of system. 

> **Lightweight or detailed notification**
>
> Depending on your connection’s capabilities, you can opt in for lightweight or detailed notifications.
>
> A <u>lightweight</u> notification is typically a bare bones message with the relevant identifier (e.g., patient, visit #) and an indication of “something's new” or “something has changed.” Lightweight notifications generally trigger you to do something within your own workflow or to query for more information.
>
> On the other hand, a <u>detailed</u> notification means that you receive all the data about what’s new or what's changed. This might be useful if you need to persist all that data in your system to complete your own unique workflow.

## Things you need to know

<details>
<summary>Common applications</summary>

This API action may be useful for census systems since the incoming data is from a specific organization, which may include one or more sites. 

Or, if your system acts upon a patient admission, discharge, or transfer into a given department, you could time your workflow to begin after receiving the relevant notification. For example, if you want to send device information to patients after they've been admitted to the hospital.

</details>

<details>
<summary>Filters</summary>

You can’t filter notifications for a specific list of patients. However, you can create a filter to receive notifications from a specific department within a hospital. For example, you may only be interested in patient discharge from a specific floor or department. [Learn about filters](/how-to-use-redox/define-and-manage-filters).

</details>

<details>
<summary>Patient backfill</summary>

A patient record or hospital admission update could look like a "new" notification if you don't have a full backfill of your connection's database. [Learn about backfilling](/implementation-guide/backfill-your-database-before-go-live).

So keep in mind that getting any of these notifications could be the first time you're hearing about a given patient, but it may actually be an update on the EHR side.

</details>

> **What's next? **
>
> Does this API action seem like a good fit for your unique workflow? Let your Technical Account Manager know! To start development, download the resource schema noted in the related action step. Then decide which data elements you need.
>
> If you’re new to Redox, [use the Quickstart guide](/quickstart-for-redox) to dive in. If you’re not engaged with our sales team yet, [talk to a Redoxer](https://redoxengine.com/forms/contact-us/) to get started.