FAC-ED-01 · Emergency arrival: triage, the board, and ending the visit

An emergency patient passes through three screens. The nurse triages them, and the South African Triage Scale (SATS) suggests a colour. The board shows every active arrival, sickest first, and how long since each was triaged. The doctor takes them into the treatment area and, when they leave, records how the visit ended on End the visit. That record takes them off the board and closes the visit.

Why this matters

Triage decides who waits. A colour set from half the observations, or a patient discharged without being told what should bring them back, is where emergency departments do harm. Verabase won't score a partial set of observations, and it won't close a visit without the things that ending needs.

Before you start

• Nurse: nurse.eze@demo-clinic.test. Doctor: dr.okafor@demo-clinic.test (both Verabase-2026).
• The patient is registered. For someone with no chart, register them first (FAC-OPD-01 step 1), even with a provisional name.
• The demo board already holds 8 arrivals, one at every acuity from Resuscitation to Non-urgent.

Steps

1. The board — as Nurse

Clinical → Emergency → Triage board. The counters at the top show how many patients are at each acuity. Each row shows:

• the acuity and SATS colour
• Waiting or Treatment Area
• danger signs
• the complaint
• Since triage: minutes since the patient was triaged, amber from 30 and red from 60

2. Triage the arrival

Choose Triage a patient.

1. Patient: search and choose. A walk-in has no visit yet, so choose Open an emergency visit. The triage belongs to that visit.
2. How they arrived, Pain score, and What brought them in, in the patient's own words.
3. Observations: mobility, respiratory rate, heart rate, systolic BP, temperature and AVPU. Until all six are in, SATS says "A partial score is not a score" and suggests nothing.
4. Danger signs, separated by commas, and any Discriminators that apply. A discriminator sets a minimum colour whatever the score says. Severe pain (7–10) holds the patient at least at ORANGE.

The SATS panel shows the colour, the TEWS score and each observation's contribution as you type:

5. Assigned acuity: take the SATS suggestion or choose another. If you override it, the board marks the row Acuity overridden and both are kept. Choose Save triage.

The patient is on the board as Waiting, sorted by acuity:

3. Take the patient in — as Doctor

On the board, choose Move to treatment area on the patient's row. The row now says Treatment Area, and Back to waiting undoes it. The patient's name opens their chart on this visit, where you write notes and place orders as in any visit.

Admit on bed board starts an admission (FAC-IPD-01). Once the admission exists, the board marks the visit Admitted by itself.

4. End the visit

Choose End visit on the row. End the visit opens with the patient and this visit already chosen.

1. Choose how the visit ended: Discharged home, Admitted, Transferred out, Left without being seen, Left against advice or Died in the department.
2. Write the Clinical summary.
3. Fill in what that ending requires. Before this can be recorded lists what is missing, and Record disposition stays disabled until it's done. A discharge needs What should bring them back:

4. Add Discharge instructions and a Follow-up plan, then choose Record disposition.

You return to the board and the patient has gone from it. The visit is closed, and Recently ended lists them:

What Verabase will refuse and why

You try to…	Verabase says	Why
Save triage from half the observations	A partial score is not a score. Still needed: …	A colour from missing numbers looks certain and isn't
Discharge without return precautions	Record what should bring this patient back before discharging them.	The commonest avoidable harm in emergency care
Transfer without naming who accepted the patient	…accepted the patient	An unaccepted transfer is a patient in an ambulance with nowhere to go
Record left against advice without both confirmations	Confirm the risks of leaving were explained. / Confirm the patient has capacity to make this decision.	Someone without capacity isn't discharging themselves; they are leaving unsafely
Close the visit from the board without recording the ending	Record how the visit ended on End the visit first…	The board has no discharge or transfer buttons, and the server refuses the shortcut too
Record a second ending for the same visit	This visit already has a disposition.	A visit ends once

Not covered here

Ambulance handover (ATMIST, taken as the crew speaks) and Resuscitation (an append-only timeline of what was done and when) are under the same Emergency menu. See FAC-ED-02 for those workflows.

You're done when…

• [ ] The arrival was triaged from a full set of observations, and the board shows the acuity you assigned.
• [ ] The doctor moved them to the treatment area.
• [ ] The visit ended with a discharge that says what should bring them back, and the patient is off the board.

Practice task

Triage a walk-in with chest pain (RR 26, HR 118, systolic 88, pain 8). Note the SATS colour and what holds it there. Then, as the doctor, move them to the treatment area and discharge them with return precautions. Check: the trainer sees the patient leave the board and appear under Recently ended with your name.

Related journeys

FAC-ED-02 Ambulance handover and resuscitation · FAC-IPD-01 Inpatient stay · FAC-OPD-01 Outpatient visit