Bengaluru: BBMP mulls triage to cut hospital waiting time

BENGALURU: With a surge in cases impacting hospitalisation, the state government has borrowed the Mumbai playbook and is looking at the ‘assess, triage & transfer and management’ strategy to conduct ward-level assessment on treatment plan: Whether patients require home care or admission into hospital.
Revenue secretary N Manjunath Prasad, who has an additional responsibility of helping BBMP with Covid management, is leading the team created to implement the strategy. This will help in managing patients and cut deaths.
Prasad said the BBMP had planned this last year and put in place ward-level teams. With a significant dip in cases after October, the plan was not implemented.
Command centres to distribute oximeters planned
Now, he has held discussions with experts and work will soon begin at the ward level. “Once we assess vulnerable populations and triage (decide the order of treatment), we can manage the situation better. Each ward will have a triage coordinator and volunteers,” Prasad said. A note for the implementation of ATM’ strategy reviewed by TOI points out that ward-level triage is seen as a successful intervention in many cities, including Mumbai.
“There’s a delay in informing patients about test results due to the centralised ICMR process, followed by BU (Bengaluru Urban) number generation process. However, wardlevel PHC gets to know the results much before ICMR releases it to the central call centre in Bengaluru. This is when triage can begin,” the note reads.
To reduce delay in releasing results and preventing panic, positive cases will be relayed to the triage coordinator instantly by the PHC throughout the day. The triage coordinator will delegate numbers to relevant citizen volunteers.
“A subset of citizen volunteers to be trained to do triage, how to detect cases that can be treated at home, that need to be sent to isolation centres and those that need hospitalization and those that need ICU admission. For each of the positive cases, one of the four outcomes are to be expected: Home Isolation; Isolation at Covid care centre; Hospital Admission and ICU admission,” the note reads.
Triage volunteers must have information on how to submit a request for bed using the central allocation system with or without BU number (use SRF ID). They must ensure all primary contacts get tested immediately and inquire about ILI/SARI symptoms for anyone who came in contact with the patient. They should also have information to schedule ambulance for pick up as needed.
The plan also involves setting up of command centres at ward level, which will distribute pulse oximeters and thermometers in slums and other localities with no access to such devices. “Training must be given on proper usage. Must ensure there are posters about prone position in multiple languages, provision for off-thecounter medicine like paracetamol, vaccination-related information, booklets, mythbusters and locations of vaccination centres,” the note says.