A new e-triage system will revolutionise the check-in process for patients visiting the DHU Healthcare-run Derby Urgent Treatment Centre.
Designed to ensure the most unwell patients are seen more quickly, the system will see the installation of five eTriage kiosks that patients can use to enter details of their condition quickly. This information then goes directly to the clinical teams who can see, at a glance, which patients need to be seen quickly.
Dr Sole Garcia said: “We introduced this system to our UTC at Loughborough to great effect, enabling multiple patients to be booked in and assessed at once that reduces waiting times whilst quickly identifying the patients most in need of treatment., This means we can very quickly prioritise their care.
“It also means that we can identify and give advice to those patients who would be more appropriately treated by a different health provider, for example a pharmacist in the least urgent cases or the emergency department in the most serious instances.”
During the book-in process, patients will be asked to input details in response to specific questions about their condition. These questions have been written and designed specifically by urgent and emergency care doctors and nurses to help provide clinicians with the information needed to prioritise and improve the flow of patients, ensuring the more serious cases are seen first.
eConsult’s eTriage system speeds up the time to assessment, reduces queues into the UTC up to reception team and frees up a clinician to treat patients who would normally triage individuals.
"Improve the experience for patients..."
Adele Peck is DHU’s Head of UTCs, she added: “It complements our team of clinicians and streamlines the booking-in procedure for patients. The process is straightforward and alongside the standard questions such as name, age and date of birth, patients will systematically be asked questions about their general health, medical history, specific symptoms and how and when they became apparent.
“The questions and follow-up questions based on those responses have been specifically designed and phrased by A&E clinicians to follow a logical pathway and include certain responses that will alert our clinicians to escalate immediately. It has also been tried and tested by our team at Loughborough and the response from patients and clinicians has been incredible, so much so we plan to roll it out further.”
The process should only take patients a few minutes to complete, the kiosks have privacy screens to respect patients’ confidentiality, one of the kiosks is specifically designed with accessibility in mind and there will be a receptionist to answer any queries, concerns and support with the check-in process.
Once complete, the patient will then be asked to take a seat and wait in the reception area for treatment or, in some cases, be referred to a more appropriate place for treatment if their condition is not urgent or if they need transporting to hospital for treatment.
