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Long and uncertain emergency department (ED) wait times might prompt some patients to leave without being seen. In addition to taking measures to decrease wait times, notifying patients of the approximate wait time at triage could reduce patient elopements. Researchers compared elopement rates during November through March in the year before and the year after implementation of a nursing triage script in the ED of an urban level I trauma center.
After completion of the triage process, nurses followed the script to inform patients that they would be seen as soon as possible, what the approximate wait time would be (the longest wait time for a patient in the waiting room at that moment), and that the arrival of sicker patients could increase t…