Canadian journal of kidney health and disease
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Can J Kidney Health Dis · Jan 2020
The Impact of a New Triage and Booking System on Renal Clinic Wait Times.
Prolonged wait times are known barriers to accessing nephrology care for patients needing more urgent specialist services. Improved process and standardized triage systems are known to minimize wait times of urgent or semi-urgent care in health care disciplines. In Central Zone (CZ) renal clinic, mean wait times for urgent (P1) and semi-urgent (P2) referrals were prolonged before 2014. We also observed prolonged wait times for elective (P3-P5) categories. Improving wait times was identified as an access to care quality improvement focus in CZ renal clinic of the Nova Scotia Health Authority (NSHA). ⋯ Our selective intake of referrals with adequate triage information and referrals needing nephrology consult as defined by our clinic intake criteria reduced number of referrals wait-listed. We saw improved wait times for urgent and semi-urgent referrals with these categories now falling within target wait times for the vast majority of patients. The work of this improvement initiative continues especially for the lower-risk triage categories.