Homerton University Hospital has become the first in London to introduce electronic check-in service for its emergency and urgent care departments. This process is accomplished by combining eTriage by eConsult Health with Cerner’s Millennium electronic patient record (EPR) system.
On arrival, patients are prompted to provide their details and answer algorithm-based questions about their illness, injury and medical history on an iPad. The system quickly identifies the sickest patients and categorises walk-ins into five different priority categories (P1-P5).
With the government setting a target of 15 minutes to assess a walk-in patient, it is estimated the new system can accomplish the goal in about one-third the time. Pilot testing has shown that with 350 walk-in patients per day, the projected average completion time for one patient is 5.4 minutes (based on data from over 250,000 patient journeys in A&E departments using eTriage).
Increasing time-to-assessment has a range of benefits for the hospital, its clinical and administrative staff and patients, such as improving patient safety, freeing up clinical time and quick Covid-19 screening.
Nine other locations are currently using eTriage for their Urgent & Emergency Departments, including St Richard’s Hospital and Chichester Hospital Emergency Departments, and Queen Mary’s Hospital, Sidcup Urgent Treatment Centre.
