NEW ZEALAND
New Zealand Back doors and car park triages at GP clinics
Today, 03:30 PM
Springlands Health practice manager Mark McLean said the practice had introduced phone screening a week and a half ago, and fitted an intercom system outside the door on Monday.
“With the growing concerns around coronavirus, we decided that we would be screening everybody at the door that was coming into the practice.”
If a patient had potential symptoms of coronavirus, or had been in contact with someone who had, they were asked to return to their car where a clinician would call them, McLean said.
McLean said the new procedure was not to scare people, but to protect vulnerable patients from being exposed to viruses in the waiting room.
“Some are going in a back entrance if they think they’ve got a respiratory issue.
“Others have got a sign telling people to phone if they’re unwell and someone will go out and triage them from the car park.”
Nelson Marlborough Health chief medical officer Dr Nick Baker said they were “meticulously” streaming potentially infectious cases separately within the health system.
“The first step of streaming is to ring the health line and see if you should be seriously concerned or not. If you are then going to come into health care, ringing the practice ahead.
He said it was advisable to implement a “low touch culture” for a while, which might involve looking at workplace practices such as hand shaking, meetings and gatherings.
“Germs don’t fly, they hitch-hike,” he said.
“The virus needs a chain of infection to thrive ... At a community level, everything we can do to break or weaken that chain of infection is good.
The virus needs a chain of infection to thrive ... At a community level, everything we can do to break or weaken that chain of infection is good.
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I agree.
“screening everybody at the door “
Outside the door would be better...
Maybe a little test tent (think I saw pics of such somewhere).