Rapid Assessment, Planning, Investigations and Discharge: Piloting the introduction of a senior doctor at triage model in an Australian paediatric emergency department

Objective We implemented a senior doctor at triage (SDT) pilot programme at The Royal Children's Hospital, Melbourne. We examined the impact on ED length of stay, seen on time and fail to wait (FTW) rates. Methods A SDT model was piloted on Monday and Tuesday afternoons (pilot period) for 10 we...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Emergency medicine Australasia 2020-02, Vol.32 (1), p.112-116
Main Authors: Andrews, Sarah L, Lewena, Stuart, Cheek, John A
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adolescent
Child
Child, Preschool
Clinical Competence
emergency medicine
Emergency Service, Hospital - organization & administration
Female
Hospitals, Pediatric - organization & administration
Humans
Infant
Infant, Newborn
Length of Stay - statistics & numerical data
Male
paediatrics
Patient Discharge - statistics & numerical data
Pilot Projects
triage
Triage - methods
Victoria
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Summary:Objective We implemented a senior doctor at triage (SDT) pilot programme at The Royal Children's Hospital, Melbourne. We examined the impact on ED length of stay, seen on time and fail to wait (FTW) rates. Methods A SDT model was piloted on Monday and Tuesday afternoons (pilot period) for 10 weeks, and compared with equivalent shifts for the preceding 10 weeks (pre‐pilot period). We determined the differences between the proportions of patients seen on time, length of stay in the ED of less than 4 h and FTW rate, as well as the medians of time to clinician and length of stay in ED. Results A total of 2736 patients presented in the pilot period, and 2889 in the pre‐pilot. The percentage of patients who were seen on time improved from 52.3% to 68.7% (absolute difference 16.4%, 95% confidence interval [CI] 13.6–19.2%, P 
ISSN:1742-6731
1742-6723
DOI:10.1111/1742-6723.13382