eTriage: how can we help?
A new tool to help us speed up the assessment process in our emergency departments has been launched today.
eTriage helps us to identify what patients need quickly, reducing waiting times and improving the experience for patients. Patients arriving at our emergency departments will be asked to check in using our new eTriage tablets. The tablets ask a series of simple questions to enable us to assess everyone and see the most urgent patients first.
Paul Cloves, Head of Emergency Care, said: “Our priority is to provide timely and appropriate urgent and emergency care. eTriage will enable us to see which patients need our care much earlier than our current process allows, while also reducing waiting times and improving the privacy afforded to our patients.”
eTriage has been developed by clinicians to check in and assess patients arriving in emergency departments. eTriage books the patient in and triages them to the correct clinician based on their medical need, highlighting those who present with the most urgent conditions to ensure they are seen first. If an emergency department is not the right place to care for you, you will be booked an appointment with your GP or other appropriate healthcare professional there and then.
Paul said: “If you attend our Emergency Department or Urgent Treatment Centre but do not require urgent or emergency care, we will advise you of an alternative healthcare provider that can better meet your needs.”
We hope that patients will find the tablets simple to use, however our reception team will still be on hand to support with the check in process, answer any questions or to help to check in any patients who are unable to use the system themselves.
The new system will speed up the book in time for patients, with most patients taking an average of four minutes from arrival to check in.