Ordering labs and images in triage

[whichone'spink]

I wanted to know what a triage nurse is usually allowed to order on a patient while that patient is still in the waiting room.

[cjcsoon2bnp, MSN, RN, NP]

I work in a Peds. ER so it is probably different than an Adult ER or mixed ER but from my experience we can have the following things ordered from Triage through "Dr. Protocol": 12 Lead EKG, Initate O2, Cardiac Monitoring, Accuchecks, UA/UPreg and then of course Ibuprofen, Tylenol and Zofran. It really depends on the time of day and the triage nurse too, I know a few triage nurses who will NEVER give Zofran to a vomiting kid no matter how long they have had to wait or how many times they've vomited in the triage area and then again you have the nurses who by the time the patient comes back to the room has a whole slew of standing orders completed and it cuts down on the total time the kid has to be in the ER.

!Chris

[bjaeram]

I'm just wondering how you guys have time to do all these things at triage? Do you have more then one triage nurse or are you not seeing tons of patients? We average around 200 a day and have on nurse and one tech at triage. Some days it's all I can do to get chief complaints and a set of vitals. I don't have time to do EKGs and meds. If they need immediate treatments they go directly to a bed or hallway bed if we are full otherwise they just wait until they get back.

[cjcsoon2bnp, MSN, RN, NP]

I'm just wondering how you guys have time to do all these things at triage? Do you have more then one triage nurse or are you not seeing tons of patients? We average around 200 a day and have on nurse and one tech at triage. Some days it's all I can do to get chief complaints and a set of vitals. I don't have time to do EKGs and meds. If they need immediate treatments they go directly to a bed or hallway bed if we are full otherwise they just wait until they get back.

It depends on how busy it is to be perfectly honest. In my ER we have at least one triage nurse and one tech. but if it gets really busy we will have two triage nurses and two techs. and depending on what is ordered we might have a tech. come from the back to help get an EKG or something. It depends on the day of the week, the time of the day and just how busy it is overall.

!Chris

[BrnEyedGirl, BSN, MSN, RN, APRN]

I'm just wondering how you guys have time to do all these things at triage? Do you have more then one triage nurse or are you not seeing tons of patients? We average around 200 a day and have on nurse and one tech at triage. Some days it's all I can do to get chief complaints and a set of vitals. I don't have time to do EKGs and meds. If they need immediate treatments they go directly to a bed or hallway bed if we are full otherwise they just wait until they get back.

We have two nurses and a tech at triage,...then a nurse and tech at "pretreatment",...triage nurse picks the the pretreatment orders and pretreatment nurse carries them out.