Triaging Walk-in patients

klone, MSN, RN · Feb 4, 2015

How many triage patients do you get that you need to prioritize them? Generally speaking, if they're so acute that they can't wait, they need to go to the ED. If they're not that acute, they can be seen first come, first served.

If you're getting so many walk-ins to your clinic that you need to triage the triage, then something is broken that needs to be fixed. That might be patient education that you're not an ED or Urgent Care clinic.

featherzRN, MSN · Feb 9, 2015

Heh, I know for my clinic we tell them we aren't urgent care or walkin until I am blue in the face. They still walk in, day after day. The front desk clerk writes down what they are there for and will urgently alert a nurse if they look in distress. Then the nurses take them first come first served unless there is a reason to triage the triage. :) I generally only have 2-3 waiting at a time so it's not usually a problem.

Unless there's a 911 call needed (patient on floor), we aren't allowed to send them to the ED without a provider laying eyes on them, even if just long enough to say 'go to the ER'.

pfchang · Feb 10, 2015

I worked in a large FP office and I can't imagine having 2-3 walkins waiting at all times to be seen. That said, we had many walkins. Some needed to be seen urgently and we also did not refer to ER readily. Insurance plans dinged the practice for ER and inpatient stays. There was a lot more to it than that, but I'm giving you the simplified explanation. Keeping patients out of ER was a goal.

Other patients walked in because they did not want to wait or an appt or think they should call ahead. They treated the office like an urgent care walk- in which we continually stressed we were not. There were lots of times I assessed sx and scheduled an appt later, meaning they were not seen right away. Some had to come back hours or a day or two later, depending on sx.