yet another triage related post

[nurse ninja]

This time I would like to know what the area is like where you triage your patients. Is it done in a private room? Is the door open or shut? Can people in the lobby view you as you do the triage? Can people in the lobby hear what you are discussing with patients?

The ED I work in is about to be remodeled. The new design is going to put the triage nurse out in the open. We are a small facility and do not warrant having more then one nurse in triage. I however have some objections to doing triage in an open environment.

[running42km]

Our emerg has an open to the waiting room triage desk with plexi-glass that separates the nurse from the patient, with only a small slot to pass a wrist or paperwork. The nurse has to get up and walk through a lockable door each time anything besides a radial pulse is warranted ... perhaps 99% of the time. Sounds tiresome, especially considering we triage up to 150 people a day, but we see a lot of aggressive people and it does provide some security if necessary. I suggest that anything less secure should not be isolated from other staff working areas.

[GM2RN]

Triage where I work is in a room with a door that, when open, I can see probably 95% of the waiting area. The door is left open 99% of the time and the room is far enough away from others in the waiting area that nothing can be overheard.

[LoveMyBugs, BSN, CNA, RN]

We call our triage area the fishbowl:lol2: it is basically the size of a patient room a a check in desk with pelexi glass windows all around it, so you can see all of the waiting room, pts check in at the desk and then we pass the info of to regisration who are in the same area, we call the pt back to the triage area where we get vitals and take a quick history. People in the waiting room can see in, but can not hear once the sliding window is shut.

[AndyLyn]

Our current design is a plexi-glass windowed room, where the triage nurse is the first person an incoming visitor/patient sees. However, we're in the process of moving triage into a more private area, with registration being the first person they see when they enter. It was hard to triage when the nurse was being constantly interrupted - and there was no privacy for assessments at all, we had complaints from parents that we did pedi rectal temps on, and it was hard to get a good mental health assessment completed. The new room, though, will make it harder to keep an eye on the waiting room, so I don't know what the solution is.

[Nomadnurse, L.P.N.]

Is not any area where the patient can be observed, or conversations inadvertently overheard, not a HIPPA violation? The ER where I work now has just an unlockable door, and plenty of glass windows between the triage area and the general population of the waiting room. I have been triaging a patient and have someone walk up and actually stand there and watch, until I had to tell them to move on. I have also had irate patients just walk in on a triage and demand to know why I took a lacerated hand before their 18 yo daughter (with a cold), because "he don't look that bad.