Suppress dates in a cell with a formula until a linked starting date is entered

[shrinkydink]

Good morning--
I've built an Excel 2010 spreadsheet (in Windows 7) with columns that have a formula that adds a certain number of days for projected date of discharge to the admit date that is entered when a patient admits to hospital. Right now, a 1/13/1900 date automatically defaults and populates in all the projected discharge date cells because the date of admit hasn't been filled in yet, and the cells are formatted as dates (obviously). Is there any way to prevent those bogus dates autopopulating until an actual admit date is entered? In other words, any way to keep them showing blank until the source date is entered? There may be a very simple solution--I'm just not familiar with advanced Excel settings. My hope is that there's a setting rather than having to write something that resembles programming--I'm lost in that arena. Thanks so much for any help anyone can give me.

[Brumbot]

Hi shrinkydink,

Yes this is possible. Using an IF statement, say admit date is in A1 and discharge date is in B1, you could write in B1:

=IF(A1="","", *formula to work out discharge date*)

Does this help?