Triage system aims to cut waiting times

Triage nurses at Wairarapa Hospital are running a pilot system to reduce patients' waiting time to see a doctor. FILE PHOTO

The Wairarapa District Health Board is piloting a new system that aims to reduce patients' waiting time to see a doctor.

The system involves triage nurses assessing patients' condition to see if they should be treated at the Emergency Department (ED) or referred to their primary care provider.

"We still get a large number of patients who could be effectively, and often more quickly, treated by their GP," said interim director Wairarapa Health Services Jill Stringer.

"The pilot includes a referral process to redirect appropriate patients to their GP in a safe, timely and efficient way."

For now, only Masterton Medical patients who meet the assessment will be offered a referral to the centre. About 80 per cent of people in greater Masterton are registered with Masterton Medical.

An appointment at Masterton Medical would be arranged before patients left the emergency department. People with limited mobility who were not accompanied by a support person would be offered assistance to get there.

Charge nurse manager acute services Jo Wailling said the pilot was a result of feedback and high patient numbers. Some patients felt it took too long to see a doctor. The aim also was to encourage people to consider seeing a GP before going to emergency.

"Our ED team sees about 17,000 people each year - that's around 3000 more than we were built to handle."

Ms Stringer said: "Patients requiring critical or urgent treatment will continue to be seen by the DHB's emergency department."

The pilot will run on weekdays for a month, before a review on whether to extend it to other primary care providers.

Outside Masterton Medical's standard week-day hours, people can contact Healthline on 0800 611116 or the on-call GP overnight by phoning their usual practice number for non-critical after-hours health care or advice.