ACOLHIMENTO COM AVALIAÇÃO E CLASSIFICAÇÃO DE RISCO EM UM SERVIÇO DE URGÊNCIA HOSPITALAR.

Abstract

The growing demand and insufficiently structured health care network for emergency hospital care has contributed to the overload of these services, making them one of the most problematic areas in the Brazilian health system. A caring and welcoming triage protocol in the hospital emergency room, stands out among the guidelines proposed in Brazilian public policies to address this issue. In this context, we developed a qualitative case study aiming to describe the perception of patients and nurses concerning to the triage of patients in the emergency room service in Goiânia, GO, Brazil. A total of 19 nurses and 21 patients participated in the study. Data were collected from November 2010 to April 2011 through participant observation and semi-structured interviews. The analysis and interpretation of data revealed that the meanings held by the participants concerning to the implementation of a caring and welcoming triage protocol were related to the transformation of the care model and to the limitations and challenges faced in emergency care services. The participants mentioned that before this protocol was implemented, the emergency service was characterized by long wait lines, overcrowding, disorganized service flow, and deaths during waiting in lines. The delayed service, its poor problem-solving capacity, lack of consistency with patient needs, and the presence of work overload were identified as factors that created frustrations not only to the service users but also to the health professionals. organization, priority treatment, efficiency and, consequently, improved quality of care. The limitations and challenges of this protocol implementation are related to promote a caring and welcoming reception in a more respectful way at the emergency room, which involves time, and a greater availability to see, listen, and inform users. The nurses noted the need for continuing education to improve technical competencies (triage protocol) and human skills (welcoming) to care. Among the difficulties mentioned were the lack of capability to problem-solving in ambulatory emergency care, which is hard for the professional during the triage protocol to refer the patient to this service. The outcomes suggested that the protocol enabled the organization and definition of access to the service according to levels of priority. There are, however, many challenges to implementing a welcoming and humanized care provided to people who require emergency care in the hospital and pre-hospital environments.