Yesterday, I talked about the importance of the triage process, and how a decision is made to determine the degree of treatment need for your child.  If the decision is made that a lessened degree of treatment is needed, you will be assigned to the Le Bonheur Children’s ED Fast Track.

If you are not sent to the ED Fast Track, don’t worry.  Despite what the name may imply, it actually makes visits to the Le Bonheur Children’s Emergency Department faster for everyone.  If a patient is kept in the main emergency department it is because of the need for that level of care.  The ED Fast Track is a little bit closer to a minor medical center.

So, once you check-in with the triage nurse, they will give you a “blue pager.” This circular pager will appear similar to those that you might get at a restaurant on a busy night.  However, this pager will help you more than you realize.  During the wait time, we know that people get nervous about even getting up to go to the bathroom for fear that they will miss their name being called.  There isn’t need to worry about being called.

Once you are sent over to the Fast Track area, you will check-in with their team at the window.  They will give you another set of paperwork to be completed.  At this point, you’re still going to hold on to the pager.  Once you’ve completed the paperwork, you will turn it back in at the window (and still hold to the pager).

Now comes the fun part, you get to wait for the pager to go off.  The great news is that this group works tremendously efficiently, and will do everything in their power to treat you in our child as quickly as possible.  Once your pager lights up and vibrates you and your child will go to the window, give the staff the pager, and they’ll take you to a room to be treated.

So, in a few short paragraphs, that is the Le Bonheur Children’s Emergency Department Fast Track.  Also, if you've been to Le Bonheur Children's ED before, you may have heard of the Fast Track referred to by other names (examples of previous names have been Non-Acute Care and Zone 8).