Product
ETRI® ELECTRONIC TRIAGE –When Minutes Count™
Etri® electronic triage is an innovative concept that is patent protected (AU patent No. 2015101805). Etri® electronic triage summarises patient name, date of birth and gender, type of clinical issue, symptoms and medical history.
This information is rendered from a short series of questions, with multi-choice answers displayed on an easy-to-use touch screen device.
Triage
- Etri® electronic triage can be patient driven, or utilised by triage staff or ambulance personnel as required, maintaining data consistency.
- Depending on the activity of the emergency department, multiple electronic triage kiosks can assist with concurrent triage processing.
- Through the use of simple language with the electronic triage process, Etri® has the capacity to display questions in multiple languages.
- Etri® promotes efficiency, consistency, concurrency and safety through digitising a manual process and re-organising the flow.
Staff
- Through electronic triage, the triage nurse is no longer integral to the process, but instead facilitates the patient to enter their own data if able.
- With less requirement of the triage nurse, there is less need for as many senior clinicians to be present at triage.
- Electronic triage enables highly skilled clinicians to be more hands on clinically and less involved with data entry.
- Electronic triage enables re-distribution of senior staff across the emergency department to provide meaningful treatment and efficient decision-making.
Patients
- Concurrent triage data entry through electronic triage, enables improved access for patients and more time-efficient processing.
- Quicker and more efficient processing through electronic triage can improve wait times for meaningful treatment.
- More efficient processing of patients via electronic triage improves patient safety with earlier identification of patient needs.
- Improved wait times for triage and meaningful treatment improves the patient journey and overall satisfaction.
- With electronic triage using simple and common language, there is a multi-language capability for patients of non-English backgrounds.
Flow
- With the potential for multiple electronic triage kiosks, triage flow can be dramatically improved with concurrent triage data entry.
- Electronic triage enables highly skilled clinical staff to concentrate on the efficient flow of meaningful treatment.
- With senior staff balanced across the emergency department instead of just at triage, efficient decision-making improves overall flow.
- Flow is optimised through the elimination of duplication, with electronic triage data able to carry across multiple information systems.
Data
- As the same questions and choice of answers are noted for each patient, electronic triage renders consistent and valuable data output.
- Electronic triage produces rich data that is ideal for use by multiple clinicians and systems, as well as for statistical analysis.
- Valuable information gathering through electronic triage can avoid duplication of effort by other clinicians, as well as avoid the patient being asked the same question over and over.
- Data gathering through electronic triage has the potential to be completed by the patient or other health personnel prior to arriving at hospital, then seamlessly transferred between various information systems.
Cost
- Electronic triage is a better than cost neutral method of processing patients arriving at the emergency department.
- Cost savings are attributed to less triage nurse contact that a patient is required to have when arriving at the emergency department.
- With less senior staff required at triage, expensive casual staff are no longer required to cover seniors in other parts of the emergency department.
- Indirect cost savings can also be had when considering the more efficient triage processing and early identification of the potentially unwell patient.
