your hospitals triage system

[TeresaEDRN06]

I have several questions. The hospital I work in, an 80 bed ED, is having some triage difficulties. We use the ESI system. The problem is, we get VERY backed up in triage. Sometimes we have people waiting 2 to 4 hours just to be triaged. It's very scary. How long is your average wait time. How big is your ED? How do you guys staff the triage team? Do you start lines and draw labs before going back into the treatment rooms? How long does the average pt wait to be triaged? Thanks in advance!

Teresa

[Displaced]

Our triage area has 2 Nurses and 1 Tech. We have two methods depending on how many patients decide to walk in at the same time. The first and more relaxed method has the patient go to the registration area, give a little info, then into the triage room to be seen by the nurse.

When patients come in by the bus load, one nurse goes up to the registration area and does a quick triage to decide where the patient will go next (straight back if we have room, to the second nurse, to the tech for an ECG or to the waiting room). The second nurse stays in one of the triage rooms where normal triage evaluation is done. The tech floats around doing ECGs/blood draws/vitals/bringing patients back/etc. We blast through the huge groups in minutes.

We are able to bring carts up to the triage area, start IVs, give meds, use portable monitors hooked up to a central tele system which helps when the ER is in a gridlock.