Front desk: "The system triaged the referral." Me: "To what?" Front desk: "Routine." Me: "It says 'new weakness, three days.'" Front desk: "The word 'weakness' is on the routine list." Which desk said this to you last? Send this to whoever re-triages the routine pile by hand.
EXPLAINED (ACCURACY-CHECKED)
Rules- and keyword-based referral triage can misclassify urgency, because a single symptom word carries different significance depending on the time course and the rest of the history.
Established: keyword/rules-based triage misclassification is a documented safety issue; time course determines urgency of 'weakness'.
PERMANENT LINK
https://cerebrospinalectomy.com/jokes/front-desk-the-system-triaged-the-referral-2/
https://cerebrospinalectomy.com/jokes/front-desk-the-system-triaged-the-referral-2/
Reprint anywhere, non-commercially, with attribution to cerebrospinalectomy.com. We punch at specialties, the system, and ourselves — never at patients.