I need my hospital to start putting signs in the ED or something because I’m getting screamed at by patients and I can’t help them. I mean I don’t care because idgaf and am more than happy to put you and your complaint of “hang nail” in your place but I’m getting tired of saying the same thing over and over. I’ve had people come up to me saying “I’ve been waiting 2 hours and some people are walking in and getting back before I do” and I have the pleasure of saying “ma’am/sir not that it’s any of your business but sometimes they’re taken back to get an EKG or a stroke screener done.” I usually get the reply of “but I’ve been waiting longer” and my response is always “your wait time comes second. First is your acuity level determined by triage. Acuity 1 gets brought back first, then 2, then 3… and so on and so forth.” OB Triage has a huge ass sign that says it but in the ED we have tiny signs and I’m so tired of arguing with people. The other argument is “that person got here after me and they got called before me”. Then I say “we have 4 parts of the ER. The main section, JET, Fast track, and super track. You are going back to Main but others might be called for those other areas”. Like I know you think you’re having an emergency but I need to petition for a sign or something because I’m wasting valuable time on what could be checking people in with arguing with patients.
I do a lot of triage during my shifts. My favorite is when I am trying to get the reason why someone came in and they just keep repeating "I've been here for 4 hours and that guy just walked in and got seen right away". I've had patients I'm triaging get up and leave and I'm like, dude, so you waited this long, was actually going to get seen soon-ish, and now you're leaving? My department does have a big sign that estimates wait time and patient flow so patients know that it's going to be at least 2-3 hours, but they get triaged right away.
We don’t even do wait times. We can just tell them how long the longest persons been waiting and once their triaged tell them how many people are before them for their section
Wait time: If you care about it, you’re not sick enough to be here.
Tbf, I was struck with kidney stone pain in the middle of the night. Felt like the worst uti in my life.... on top of a stomach virus. I know our ER has higher wait times in the middle of the night, so I waited until 8am when I couldn't take it anymore. It paid off because I went from registration to triage to a bed in 5 minutes flat. My butt didn't even touch a chair in the waiting room. Or.... maybe I just looked that bad. My friend is a clinical care coordinator and she stopped in to see me and gasped when she rounded the curtain. So maybe I did look that bad lol. No sleep, nauseated, diarrhea, no sleep, and in pain. I did probably look awful
That was my first thought! I know I'm not dying but a kidney stone sure feels like it and I do care about wait times. Not that I could express it because of pain.