It’s good practice to have one list to work from. If patients are put on different lists,
patients can get missed or lost, which is risky. And even though the number of contacts may be equal, that may not accurately mean the complexity of the work distributed is equal. Total triage is a shared endeavour. Moving to this way of working is a situation where it is essential as a team to have an open discussion about expectations, transparency and trust. There will be differences in work-rate between clinicians and this is an opportunity to learn from each other and build in opportunities for personal and professional development. Data can be helpful here – looking at re-attendance rates, use of diagnostics, conversion to face- to-face and case-mix are all useful markers to balance simple data on number of patient contacts.
Undertaking triage work in a shared room, rather than individual clinical rooms is a great opportunity to share and learn as a team.
