By Dr. Charles Pollack, MD, Chief Medical Officer, Company Nurse powered by Lintelio
When your organization is evaluating nurse triage programs for workplace injuries, look for the solution that can ensure the best and most consistent outcomes. Such a process requires a two-pronged approach: utilizing a robust triage algorithm and leveraging the expertise of experienced clinical nurses.
Nurse Triage Outcomes
The best nurse triage outcomes hinge on determining the optimal site and timing of care for injured employees, as soon as possible after the injury occurs. When these directives are correctly fulfilled, they facilitate a rapid return to work and minimize unnecessary emergency room visits, where wait times may prompt anxiety, can prolong recovery, and may strain community resources, especially in rural areas.
The proof is in the numbers. When nurse triage is executed efficiently, employees promptly receive the care they need, which may only entail self-care advice, as is the case for 40% of an organization’s workplace injuries. When you ensure injured workers are triaged to the correct level of care, you can avoid unnecessary visits to medical facilities, including the emergency room, reducing unnecessary claims by up to 20%. An excellent nurse triage program can also proactively address injuries to avoid escalation, leading to a significant cost savings for your organization—up to 30%.
To achieve these outcomes, it’s vital to partner with a nurse triage solution that can provide both a powerful algorithm and experienced, skilled nurses.
Implementing a Strong Algorithm
A robust nurse triage algorithm systematically and efficiently assesses each unique injury and directs injured workers to the most appropriate resources. This entails the algorithm identifying the lowest potential acuity setting, based on the severity of the condition. This approach expedites the employee’s care without undermining the seriousness of the injury.
Additionally, a nurse triage algorithm must facilitate prompt identification of life-threatening, limb-threatening, or sight-threatening conditions that require immediate referrals to emergency care. For other conditions, emergency room visits may often be avoided. Or a visit to a medical facility may not be required at all — preventing a claim from happening in the first place.
Furthermore, an effective algorithm must encompass a comprehensive library of injuries to effectively guide nurses for any injury that may arise. And, it must be able to quickly adapt to evolving needs and new threats, such as COVID exposures that began arising in 2020.
Empowering Skilled Nurses
An effective nurse triage algorithm serves to provide consistent and rational guidance to nurses, enabling them to determine the appropriate level of care for each injured worker.
But an effective nurse triage program must also include and foster utilization of nurses’ skills and clinical judgement. These are vital to the triage process to ensure injuries are properly assessed and addressed on a case-by-case basis. If the nurse determines a need to escalate the severity of the injury, then it should be up to their discretion based upon the information reported.
For example, if the injured worker sustains an injury that would typically only warrant self-care, such as a strain to the back or a sprained ankle, but exhibits unexpectedly severe symptoms, the nurse may use their judgement to refer the employee to a medical facility, ensuring that the pain is not an indicator of a more serious condition.
And for injuries that only require self-care, these skilled nurses can provide clear, easy-to-follow advice that can provide both physical relief and peace-of-mind.
A skilled triage nurse not only has the knowledge of how to identify injuries and their severity levels but also the experience in assessing unique incidents and how to address them.
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At Company Nurse powered by Lintelio, we leverage both our powerful algorithm and the discretion of our skilled nurses to achieve optimal nurse triage outcomes.
Our seamless solutions capture detailed, accurate incident information from the outset and instantly and securely deliver this information to the stakeholders in the incident management process.
Email sales@companynurse.com to learn more!