But on busy Saturdays we can hit 40+ patients in 12 hours, and chest pain still walks in without an ECG on arrival. How are you triaging and risk-stratifying fast in urgent care — ECG within 10 minutes, point-of-care troponin if you have it, or straight to EMS when the story feels wrong? I’m trying to tighten our flow without compromising safety.
We cut “ECG within 10 minutes” to under five by parking the machine in triage and letting MAs run it on any chief complaint with the word chest — before vitals or registration — and I glance at it while they room. If it’s clean we’ll layer in HEART + POC troponin at 0/60, but if there’s pain with diaphoresis or exertional onset we go straight to EMS. Have you tried HEART in your flow yet (https://www.mdcalc.com/calc/1720/heart-score-major-cardiac-events)?