Triage an Emergency Patient to the Board

Who / when: the Triage Nurse, the moment an emergency patient arrives at casualty — and the ED Physician, who picks them up off the board once they are triaged. ED here means Emergency Department. Triage is the quick first assessment that decides how sick the patient is and how soon they must be seen. Every emergency patient passes through it before anyone else touches them.

1. Triage Nurse — open ED → Triage. The “Triage assessment” form opens as a short, guided sequence, one step at a time.
2. Triage Nurse — on step “1 · Presentation”, search for the patient (by name or UHID — the Unique Health ID, the permanent VNA-… hospital number) and type the chief complaint (what brought them in, in their own words: “chest pain”, “road traffic accident”, and so on).
3. Triage Nurse — on step “2 · Vital signs”, record the observations: temperature, heart rate (HR), blood pressure (BP), oxygen saturation (SpO₂), respiratory rate (RR), GCS (Glasgow Coma Scale, a 3–15 score of consciousness) and blood glucose. Flag suspected infection where it applies.
4. Triage Nurse — set the acuity. This is a 5-level scale of urgency, where 1 is immediate (life-threatening) and 5 is least urgent. Choose the level honestly — it decides where the patient sits in the queue and whether the team is alerted.
5. Triage Nurse — press “Save” (the screen may read “Assign & route”). Veona opens an emergency Encounter (the record of this visit) on the shared clinical spine and places the patient on the board.
6. ED Physician — open ED → ED Board. The new patient now appears on the live emergency board, sorted by acuity and waiting time, and also on the Disposition worklist. Open the patient row to assign yourself and a cubicle, and begin care.

Caution

Acuity 1 is the highest priority. When you set it, the screen surfaces a resuscitation prompt — do not silence it. Triage immediately and, where the patient needs the resus bay, escalate with one tap (see Activate Resus With One Tap).

Note

The acuity you set, the vitals you record and the encounter you open are all signed to you and audited. The same emergency encounter carries through to charting, ordering and — at the end — the disposition the physician records.

What happens next

The patient is now visible to the whole ED team on the board and the Disposition worklist, with their acuity driving their place in line. The ED physician examines them, orders any tests, and — when ready — records a disposition: admit them to a ward, refer them out, or discharge them home. Each of those is its own guide below.

Follow the trail

• Next: Admit an Emergency Patient to a Ward · Activate Resus With One Tap
• Related: Refer an Emergency Patient Out With a Packet · Discharge an Emergency Patient With a Note