MoodyButt

Would you be interested in sharing your transfer form?

We are considering faxed patient reports to inpatient units. Anyone want to give advise on this, pro's, con's, what your policy is? Anyone have a form they are willing to share? Thanks in advance.

The patient will still be triaged by a RN prior to registration/physician, assigning a triage priority 1 - 5. It's just we are looking at letting the patient decide which triage area they will start. We will not be sending them elsewhere, our Fast Track is located within our ED. If the patient choses to come back to FT triage to be triaged and doesn't meet the criteria to be seen in FT, the patient will be escorted back to the main ED waiting area, unless they need immediate attention and then will be placed in a bed and taken to the major ED. None of this goes against EMTALA in that all patients will recieve a medical screening by a physician/PA while in the ED. Quite a few hospitals use this method of patient self triage and I was hoping to get some input from those that do.

We are locked for space. The front has just been remodeled, with the 3 triage areas. We are currently looking at plans for our new ED, to hopefully be opened in 2008 with approx. 100 beds. This is something we are just tossing around to help for the next 3 years.

The idea that was given to me this morning was, as patients enter the ED, there will be a sign stating ( something like this): Patient who are here with coughs, colds, sprains, strains, earaches, minor complaints may be seen in FT, with directions to the FT entrance. This is allowing patients to make the decision if they fit these problems. There will be a separate triage area/nurse who then will make the final decision. One of our biggest problems in patient flow is back up in the triage area. We currently have 3 triage stations. Thanks for your input.

We are considering Self Triage for patients for our Fast Track. Do any of you do this? Care to share any ideas on starting this? Really need some feedback please. Thank, Mary

After 21 years in the ER, last 17 in a Level 1, I now work totally in our Fast Track section, which I refer to as "CandyLand". A typical day: Patient #1: I was opening my bottle of Tylox, and spilled them on the floor, my wife was vacumming and sucked up every last one of them. Prescription for 80 was given by ortho the day before. Hmmmm....can't you just empty the vaccum bag? Patient #2: I have a prescription for 120 Oxycontin, don't have the money to get them filled. Can you call the Social Worker to see if they can get it filled and pay for it. Hmmmm....why not pawn the Mr. T starter set you have around your neck and on your fingers? Phone call from local pharmacy: Mr. X is getting his prescriptions filled that y'all just wrote him. He doesn't want his Pen V K. Only his Vicodin. What should we do? If he doesn't want his PenVK, he can't have his Vicodin. Patient #3: I'm out of Percocet and i'm going through withdrawal, I've called ortho and they can't see me til next week. Phone rings: This is the sec in the Ortho Clinic, we see Joe Schmoe is in the ER, we talked to him this morning and he has scripts up here waiting for him to pick up. Joe needs to learn that our tracking system can be viewed by most everywhere in the hospital. Phone call from another pharmacy: Mr. X wants his Vicodin and not his PenVK. When will he figure it out, we aren't going to let them fill the Vicodin without the other. By the way: both meds were written on the same script, so the pharmacy can't fill just one without our OK. I could go on, I get real frustrated with these patients, but also get a chuckle out of them at the same time. I've asked management if I could make a banner "Welcome to Candy Land" to hang over the door, but for some reason they won't approve it.

Was reading the postings. Seeing the original post was from NC, just a thought. Has your daughter looked at Duke? They have a Pathology Assistant program, that focuses on forensics.