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REGISTER TODAY: EMPSF 2nd Annual Emergency Care Patient Safety Summit:
 
From Insights to Outcomes – Getting Results!
 
March 22-23, 2012 at the Marriott Riverwalk Hotel in San Antonio, TX. 
 
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Fast Facts

National Health Statistics Report, Number 7, August 6, 2008

 

 

Triage
Triage is used in the emergency department (ED) to prioritize patients needing care. This system has long been entrenched in the emergency department system of care; however, the approaches to triage and their often accompanying issues can vary in EDs across the country.
 
This issue of the Urgent Matters E-Newsletter examines these approaches and questions this entrenchment. Ellen J. Weber, MD, FACEP, of the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) argues in the “Case Study” below for the adoption of streamlining triage. Weber uses the United Kingdom's approach to triage as a model for inspiration. In this system, patients are not categorized by the Emergency Severity Index (ESI) but instead assessed only as high acuity or not. Conversely, the “Best Practices” article below highlights how the Children's National Medical Center in Washington, DC, was able to reduce arrival-to-triage times by implementing the ESI and a rapid triage process. In this issue's “Innovations,” Lisa Wolf's concept of "under-triage" is conceptualized in terms of the commonly used ESI, created to ease the triage process by stratifying patients on the basis of acuity and resource need but which ultimately leads to patients being mislabeling. Wolf establishes connections between this common issue of under-triage and delayed treatment in the ED.
 
 
 

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Spotlight on Learning Network II

Thomas Jefferson University Hospital is an urban, academic health center located in Center City Philadelphia, PA.  Like other academic health centers, they struggle with balancing patient care, education, and research.  The opportunity to collaborate with other hospitals in addressing the hospital’s patient flow issues led Linda Davis-Moon MSN, CRNP, APRN, BC, executive director for strategic initiatives to Urgent Matters Learning Network II.  “We wanted support from our peers and to learn how others were addressing patient flow problems,” said Davis-Moon, the Urgent Matters project director.

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Urgent Matters Toolkit

The Urgent Matters toolkit is a collection of strategies and tools designed to target specific issues facing hospital emergency departments. This toolkit has been developed by hospitals across the country in conjunction with the Urgent Matters national program office at The George Washington University.

Many of these tools are now available on the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation website. Check out the example below or click "see all" to view the full list.

See all