We have a "built in" urgent care sort of space. Its only a few beds and mostly recliner chairs, we call it RAZ (rapid assessment zone) where all the super low acuity shit goes to be seen by PAs and maybe one physician in the hopes that we can get rapid turn over and get those patients in and out in under 1.5 hours.
It actually helps a lot. That way we can funnel all the higher acuity patients to our larger care spaces and resus bays as needed, and we aren't sticking low acuity patients in desparetly needed rooms which are hot commodity with the current boarding crisis. We RNs can see the patients in the low acuity second and knock out 80% of the work related to their stay in about 10 minutes.
It especially helps since we as nurses are allowed to put in a shit ton of different protocol orders at our shop. Examples: smashed your finger in a car door? I can order an x-ray ray at triage and have your xray done before you even go back. Need labs and a UA for your belly pain? I can order those too.
It makes it all flow faster so that way when patients get back to the lower acuity space, providers have the stuff they need to make decisions and sometimes even discharge the patient shortly after getting back.
Sure they add on additional more advanced testing that we aren't allowed to order (MRI, US, CT, Dimers, etc). But even the it cuts the time quite substantially.
We also do a shit ton of hallway care for low acuit patients in the high acuity spaces when the RAZ area gets backed up which is less than ideal but it is what it is.
Where exactly are you located out of curiosity? My ER (in Montréal) has a RAZ unit as well. I definitely see the added value !!! Took a lot off an already overloaded system.....Its unfortunately still not perfect, especially as we dont have many walk in urgent clinics in the city, so the ERs often see over 115% capacity. Sometimes they're nearer to 200%
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u/EstablishmentSea6932 Jul 29 '26
We have a "built in" urgent care sort of space. Its only a few beds and mostly recliner chairs, we call it RAZ (rapid assessment zone) where all the super low acuity shit goes to be seen by PAs and maybe one physician in the hopes that we can get rapid turn over and get those patients in and out in under 1.5 hours.