:angryfire My newER director has recently told us that we are triaging "wrong". As an example, she said that a patient recently signed in as "lady partsl bleeding". The pt. waited in the waiting room for 1/2 hour, then left to go to another hospital and miscarried in the parking lot. Her point was, the triage nurse should;ve gone out to the waiting room and asked the pt if she was pregnant. So What? I should have been more assertive, but now I question was the pregnancy viable? Were there 10 people to triage before her? Were we on diversion? Were we holding multiple admits? were there 4 ""chest pain" patients in their 60's and 70's before her? Where was I supposed to put THEM? Was the charge nurse available to help triage? If we were absolutely full to the brim, what was the triage nurse supposed to do? AARRGH. waiting times where I am are 8-10 hours. sometimes even 10-18 hours at county hospital.. If we are full to the brim, what are we supposed to do? I must've blanked out at this discussion, although I was "greatly irritated" (read: really pissed off_) I, for some reason, couldn/t defend us at the time. the more I think about it, the more it irritates me. Any suggestions? Any good replies? I was not the nurse in question. I was in triage last night, and was ordering labs/xrays whatever I could to help speed up things. I do my job and I do it well, but sometimes we are just overwhelmed and we have absolutely no power over the situation. I don't need my "boss" to tell me how to triage. Let's see how SHE does!:angryfire
