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PubMed2002

A study of triage of paediatric patients in Australia.

OBJECTIVES: To describe the triage of children in a sample of mixed and paediatric emergency departments in Australia in 1999 and to measure the inter-rater reliability of the National Triage Scale when used by triage nurses for the triage of paediatric patients. METHODS: A questionnaire was sent to 11 hospitals, including one paediatric and one mixed emergency department, in each state studied. Triage nurses were asked to assess 25 paediatric patient profiles and to assign appropriate triage categories to each profile. The number of responses within the modal triage category (concurrence), the percentage of responses with a concurrence of at least 50% and the number of responses within one triage category of the modal response (spread) of responses were measured. Triage data for 1999 from the same emergency departments were collected and numbers of children seen and admitted in each triage category were described. The patterns of distribution of triage categories for specific paediatric diagnoses (triage 'footprints') were also described. Data from mixed emergency departments were grouped and compared with data from paediatric emergency departments and any differences were described. RESULTS: Seventy-eight nurses in 10 hospitals responded to the questionnaire. Sixty-three per cent of all responses had a concurrence of greater than 50%. Ninety-four per cent of patient profiles were triaged to within one triage category of their modal response. Nurses in paediatric emergency departments (concurrence greater than 50% for 79% of responses) were significantly more consistent in their use of the National Triage Scale compared with nurses in mixed emergency departments (concurrence greater than 50% for 50% of responses). Paediatric emergency department triage nurses were more likely to use the full range of the National Triage Scale and were fourfold as likely to allocate triage categories 4 and 5 to patient profiles. Paediatric hospitals allocated patients to triage categories 4 and 5 for an average of 710 of presentations compared with 47% for mixed emergency departments. Specific diagnoses had characteristic distributions of triage categories, with similar differences seen when comparisons were made between mixed and paediatric emergency departments. CONCLUSION: Use of the National Triage Scale for the triage of paediatric patients by triage staff is not consistent and there are significant differences between the triage practices of paediatric and mixed emergency departments.

Australia↗
PubMed1999

Australian disaster triage: a colour maze in the Tower of Babel.

BACKGROUND: The objective of this study was to review the systems of disaster triage used by Australian State and Territory ambulance services and compare their triage taxonomy, methodology and documentation with the Australian Council on Health Care Standard's (ACHCS) National Triage Scale, which is used in all Australian hospital emergency departments. METHODS: A postal survey of the State and Territory ambulance services during October 1996 was conducted. Details of the mass casualty incident (MCI) triage systems were then compared with the ACHCS National Triage Scale. Colours specified or used on a triage tag were checked for compliance with Standards Australia AS-2700 1996 Colour Standards for General Purposes. Participants consisted of those State and Territory ambulance services which would be the initial emergency medical service responders in the event of an MCI in an Australian capital city, and the ACHCS. The main outcome measure was the homology between the respective triage taxonomies, methodologies and documentation systems. RESULTS: All eight State and Territory ambulance services used a numerical and colour coded system to indicate triage priority during an MCI. There were five different triage tag designs for triage documentation, six different triage taxonomies and five different triage methodologies with minimal homology between the different triage systems and the National Triage Scale used in hospitals. Only two ambulance triage systems specifically triaged emotional disturbance. Several triage tags and their patient attachments were made from perishable materials and are thus likely to fail under field conditions. CONCLUSION: The multiplicity of triage systems used within Australia will result in avoidable confusion, thus hindering the medical response to an MCI, especially for incidents near State or Territory borders. There is little evidence to support the continued use of triage tags. Australia needs to develop a uniform system of patient triage as a national priority.

Australia↗
PubMed2005

Triage in emergency departments: national survey.

AIM: This paper reports a study the aim of which was to describe how triage-related work was organized and performed in Swedish emergency departments. BACKGROUND: Hospitals in many developed countries use some kind of system to prioritize the patients attending emergency departments. Triage is a commonly used term to refer to the process of sorting and prioritizing patients for care. How the triage procedure is organized and which personnel perform this type of work vary considerably throughout the world. In Sweden, few studies have explored this important issue. METHOD: A national survey was conducted using telephone interviews, with nurse managers at each of the emergency departments. The sample represented 87% of emergency departments in Sweden. RESULTS: The findings clearly illustrate the organization of emergency department triage, focusing on personnel who perform triage, as well as the facilities, resources and procedures available for triage. However, the results indicate that work associated with such triage in Sweden is not organized in any consistent matter. In 81% of the emergency departments a clerk, Licensed Practical Nurse or Registered Nurse were assigned to assess patients not arriving by ambulance. There was also diversity in other areas, including requirements for staff to have particular qualifications and clinical experience for being allocated to triage work, as well as facilities for triage personnel assessing and prioritizing patients. The use of triage scales and acuity ratings also lacked uniformity and disparities were observed in both the design and use of triage scales. A little less than half (46%) of the emergency departments did not use any kind of triage scale to document patient acuity ratings. CONCLUSION: In contrast to several other countries, this study shows that Swedish emergency departments do not adhere well to established standards and guidelines about triage in emergency care. Research on emergency department triage, especially in the areas of personnel performing triage, triage scales and standards and guidelines are recommended. RELEVANCE TO CLINICAL PRACTICE: The diversity among several aspects of nursing triage (e.g. use of less qualified personnel performing triage, the use of different triage scales) presented in the study points to a safety risk for the patients. It also shows the need of further education for the personnel in clinical practice as well as further research on triage in order to gain national consensus about this nursing task.

Ambulances↗
PubMed1998

Decision making by emergency nurses in triage assessments.

Triage assessment of patients on arrival at emergency departments involves complex decision making, resulting in categories being assigned to prioritize patients' needs for attention. The actual process of triage decision making has received limited attention. The aims of this study were to describe aspects of the triage decision-making process used by both more and less experienced nurses (n = 20) and to test the effect of uncertainty in the triage situation on the use of probability judgements (heuristics). Six triage cases based on actual triage situations were simulated to subjects, and their verbal protocols were collected. Protocols were transcribed and analysed. Main findings were: in conditions of higher uncertainty in triage situations all nurses used more probability in their judgements (t-test -2.37, df = 17, P = 0.03) with the heuristic of representativeness being relied on the most. The triage categories finally assigned for each triage situation showed no agreement on a specific triage category for each triage case and past triage experiences were used in decision making. The more experienced group reported higher estimations of correctness regarding the final category assigned, used more single previously experienced cases from memory, collected less data and made more judgements than the less experienced group. Further examination of the decision-making process of triage assessment should occur with attention to the variable use of triage categories, the role of past triage experiences in making judgements and development of triage decision rules for skilling nurses for triage.

Clinical Competence↗
PubMed2005

Evaluation of the Emergency Severity Index (version 3) triage algorithm in pediatric patients.

OBJECTIVES: As demand for emergency services outpaces available allocated resources, emergency department (ED) triage systems face increasing scrutiny. Longer waits for care make the use of reliable, valid triage systems imperative to patient safety. Little is known about the reliability and validity of triage systems in children. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the reliability and validity of the Emergency Severity Index version 3 (ESIv.3) triage algorithm in a pediatric population. METHODS: This two-phase investigation used both retrospective chart review and prospective, observational designs. Interrater reliability was evaluated using ED triage scenarios, a prospective cohort of ED patients presenting to triage, and retrospective triage assignments using the original triage note. ED triage nurses, nurse investigators, and physician investigators performed retrospective blinded triages using only the original triage note to assess reproducibility. In the second phase, validity was assessed using a retrospective analysis of observed resource use, ED length of stay, and hospitalization compared with resource utilization estimated at triage by the ESI. RESULTS: In the reliability phase, weighted kappa for ED nurse triage of standard scenarios ranged from 0.84 to 1.00, representing excellent agreement. Twenty ED pediatric patients were triaged simultaneously by an ED triage nurse and the nurse investigator. Weighted kappa was 0.82 (95% confidence interval = 0.66 to 0.98), also representing strong agreement between raters. When used for retrospective chart review, the weighted kappa statistics ranged from 0.42 to 0.84, representing poor to good agreement among the different categories of reviewers. During the validity phase, 510 patients were included in the final data analysis. Hospitalization, ED length of stay, and resource utilization were strongly associated with ESIv.3 category. CONCLUSIONS: The ESI triage algorithm demonstrated reliability and validity between triage assignment and resource use in this group of ED pediatric patients.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2001

Clinical decisions using the National Triage Scale: how important is postgraduate education?

Triage is the formal nursing assessment of all patients who present to an Emergency Department (ED). The National Triage Scale (NTS) is used in most Australian EDs. Triage decision making involves the allocation of every patients presenting to an ED to one of the five NTS categories. The NTS directly relates a triage category to illness or injury severity and need for emergency care. Triage nurses' decisions not only have the potential to impact on the health outcomes of ED patients, they are also used, in part, to evaluate ED performance and allocate components of ED funding. This study was a correlational study that used survey methods. Triage decisions were classified as 'expected triage', 'overtriage' or 'undertriage' decisions. Participant's qualifications were allocated to five categories: 'nil'; 'emergency nursing'; 'critical care nursing'; 'midwifery'; and 'tertiary' qualifications. There was no correlation between triage decisions and length of experience in emergency nursing or triage. 'Expected triage' decisions were more common when the predicted triage category was Category 3 (P < 0.001) and 'overtriage' decisions were less common when the predicted triage category was Category 2 (P < 0.0010). The frequency of 'undertriage' decisions decreased significantly when the predicted triage category was Category 3 (P < 0.001) or Category 4 (P < 0.001). There was no correlation between triage decisions and qualifications in the 'nil', 'emergency nursing' or 'critical care nursing' categories. A midwifery qualification demonstrated a positive correlation with 'expected triage' decisions (P = 0.048) and a negative correlation with 'undertriage' decisions (P = 0.012). There was also a positive correlation between a tertiary qualification and 'expected triage' decisions (P = 0.012).

Clinical Competence↗
PubMed1996

Triage: limitations in predicting need for emergent care and hospital admission.

STUDY OBJECTIVE: Little is known about the accuracy and reliability of current triage methods. We examined agreement among observers with regard to the need for ED care and the ability to predict at triage the need for admission to the hospital and compared these findings with admission rates after medical evaluation and management. METHODS: We used a crossover design in which each subject was subjected to nurse or computer-guided triage first, the other type of triage second, and physician triage last. Our null hypothesis: Triage methods will yield the same results. Our patients were a consecutive sample of patients at the ED of a university-affiliated county referral center. Critically ill patients were excluded. Triage categorization was examined for interobserver agreement (kappa-statistic) and prediction of admission (sensitivity, specificity, and predictive values). RESULTS: Of the 5,106 patients enrolled in the study, 289 (6.2%) were admitted. With regard to the agreement of triage categorizations, we found kappa-values of .452 and .185, respectively, for physician triage compared with nurse (SE +/- .012) and computer triage (SE +/- .012)(P = .001 for the difference between the kappa values). Sensitivity and specificity in predicting admission were 41.3 and 93.8, respectively, for nurses, 61.6 and 87.1, respectively, for physicians; and 68.2 and 73.6, respectively, for computer-aided triage. CONCLUSION: We found great variability among physicians, nurses, and a computer program with regard to triage decisions. Comparison of the three groups' triage decisions with actual data after medical evaluation and management showed that none of the three performed well in predicting which patients required admission. Until triage methods are standardized and validated, triage decisions should not be used to determine the timeliness of access to emergency care.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2001

Triage nurses' clinical decision making. An observational study of urgency assessment.

BACKGROUND: Researchers have described both the various decision tasks performed by triage nurses using self-report methods and identified time as a factor influencing the quality of triage decisions. However, little is known about the decision tasks performed by triage nurses when making acuity assessments, or the factors influencing triage duration in the real world. AIMS: The aims of this study were to: describe the data triage nurses collect from patients in order to allocate a triage priority using the Australasian Triage Scale (ATS); describe the duration of nurses' decision making for ATS categories 2-5; and to explore the impact of patient and nurse variables on the duration of the triage nurses' decision making in the clinical setting. DESIGN: A structured observational study was employed to address the research aims. Observational data was collected in one adult emergency department located in metropolitan Melbourne, Australia. A total of 26 triage nurses consented and were observed performing 404 occasions of triage. Data was collected by a single observer using a 20-item instrument that recorded the performance frequencies of a range of decision tasks and a number of observable patient, nurse and environmental variables. Additionally, the nurse-patient interaction was recorded as time in minutes. RESULTS: It was found that there was limited use of objective physiological data collected by the nurses' in order to decide patient acuity, and large variability in the duration of triage decisions observed. In addition, analysis of variance indicated strong evidence of a true difference between triage duration and a range of nurse, patient and environmental variables. CONCLUSION: These findings have implications for the development of practice standards and triage education. In particular, it is argued that practice standards should include routine measurement of physiological parameters in all but the collapsed or obviously unwell patient, where further delay may impede the delivery of time-critical intervention. Furthermore, the inclusion of arbitrary time frames for triage assessment in practice standards are not an appropriate method of evaluating triage decision making in the real world.

Adult↗
PubMed2001

Comparative analysis of multiple-casualty incident triage algorithms.

STUDY OBJECTIVE: We sought to retrospectively measure the accuracy of multiple-casualty incident (MCI) triage algorithms and their component physiologic variables in predicting adult patients with critical injury. METHODS: We performed a retrospective review of 1,144 consecutive adult patients transported by ambulance and admitted to 2 trauma centers. Association between first-recorded out-of-hospital physiologic variables and a resource-based definition of severe injury appropriate to the MCI context was determined. The association between severe injury and Triage Sieve, Simple Triage and Rapid Treatment, modified Simple Triage and Rapid Treatment, and CareFlight Triage was determined in the patient population. RESULTS: Of the physiologic variables, the Motor Component of the Glasgow Coma Scale had the strongest association with severe injury, followed by systolic blood pressure. The differences between CareFlight Triage, Simple Triage and Rapid Treatment, and modified Simple Triage and Rapid Treatment were not dramatic, with sensitivities of 82% (95% confidence interval [CI] 75% to 88%), 85% (95% CI 78% to 90%), and 84% (95% CI 76% to 89%), respectively, and specificities of 96% (95% CI 94% to 97%), 86% (95% CI 84% to 88%), and 91% (95% CI 89% to 93%), respectively. Both forms of Triage Sieve were significantly poorer predictors of severe injury. CONCLUSION: Of the physiologic variables used in the triage algorithms, the Motor Component of the Glasgow Coma Scale and systolic blood pressure had the strongest association with severe injury. CareFlight Triage, Simple Triage and Rapid Treatment, and modified Simple Triage and Rapid Treatment had similar sensitivities in predicting critical injury in designated trauma patients, but CareFlight Triage had better specificity. Because patients in a true mass casualty situation may not be completely comparable with designated trauma patients transported to emergency departments in routine circumstances, the best triage instrument in this study may not be the best in an actual MCI. These findings must be validated prospectively before their accuracy can be confirmed.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2002

Triage of patients with chest pain in the emergency department: a comparative study of physicians' decisions.

PURPOSE: Little is known about physicians' triage decisions for patients with chest pain in the emergency department. We sought to understand better the variability and accuracy of physicians' triage decisions. SUBJECTS AND METHODS: We used 20 simulated cases to compare triage decisions by 147 physicians (46 emergency medicine, 87 internal medicine, and 14 cardiology physicians) with triage decisions recommended by a previously validated prediction rule. We calculated triage sensitivity and specificity using the prediction rule to estimate the likelihood that each of the simulated patients would suffer a major complication. Triage sensitivity was defined as the proportion of all patients expected to have major complications who were triaged to the coronary care or inpatient telemetry unit. RESULTS: Triage specificity was defined as the proportion of all patients without complications who were triaged to sites other than the coronary care or inpatient telemetry unit.Physicians' triage decisions were less sensitive (85% vs. 96%, P <0.001) and less specific (38% vs. 41%, P = 0.02) than decisions recommended by the prediction rule. Physicians overestimated patients' risk of complications and triaged more patients to inpatient monitored beds. Despite their preference for inpatient monitored beds, physicians' decisions would have resulted in four times as many major complications in patients who were not triaged to inpatient monitored beds, compared with decisions recommended by the prediction rule (2.4% vs. 0.6%, P <0.001). Although physicians' decisions were best explained by their provisional diagnoses, interphysician agreement about triage decisions (kappa = 0.34) and diagnosis (kappa = 0.31) was only fair. CONCLUSIONS: In simulated cases, physicians' triage decisions varied widely and their predictions of patient outcomes differed markedly from that of the validated prediction rule, suggesting that use of the prediction rule in the emergency department could improve physicians' decisions and patients' outcomes.

Acute Disease↗
PubMed2001

Quality assurance of nurse triage: consistency of results over three years.

The study objective was to evaluate the capability and the consistency of the triage nurse to categorize correctly emergency patients and its impact on the waiting time for physician examination over a period of 3 years. The study was performed at the emergency department of the Barzilai Medical Center, Ashkelon, Israel. A retrospective review of the medical records was performed. All patients who were examined by a triage nurse during 2 randomly chosen consecutive weeks during the years 1995 and 1998 participated. All the medical records were reviewed by the authors and the following information was extracted from the medical records: nurse triage category, time of initial evaluation by a triage nurse, duration of employment of the nurse in the ED, and her experience as a triage nurse, time of initial examination by a physician, the total length of stay in the ED, the history taken by the triage nurse and the physician, and the physician's urgency category. Patient in urgency category 1 is a patient whose condition may deteriorate if not examined within 1 hour; patient in category 2 is a patient whose condition may deteriorate if not examined within 2 hours; category 3 is all the rest. Any deterioration and or delay of treatment of the patients were also recorded. Data concerning patients with an initial complaint of chest pain were extracted separately. The data were analyzed using the SPSS software and the results were tested by the student t test and chi square test. Interobserver agreement was measured using the kappa value. A total of 2,886 completely full medical records were reviewed by the authors: 1,310 records from period I (1995) and 1576 from period II (1998). Of the patients 92% and 88.2% were classified by the triage nurse as category 3 in periods I and II respectively, 7% and 9.8% as category 2, and 1% and 2% as category 1 respectively. Full agreement of triage category between nurse and physician was found in 90.5% of the cases in period I and 93% in period II (kappa = 0.90 and kappa = 0.93 respectively). In period I, 70% of the patients in category 1 were examined by a physician in 1 hour versus 100% in period II. Almost all the patients in category 2 were examined within 2 hours (98%, 97%), and 98% of those in category 3 were examined within 3 hours. The average waiting time for physician examination in category 1 patients dropped from 43.1 minutes in period I to 18.2 minutes in period II. The average waiting time for the triage nurse was 9 minutes in period I, and 7.42 minutes in period II. The average length of stay in the ED in period I was 1 hour and 24 minutes and 1 hour and 30 minutes in period II. Of the anamneses taken by the triage nurse 91.8% were fully identical with the physicians' anamneses, but in period II this percentage jumped to 98%. Patients with chest pain were categorized correctly by the triage nurse in 76.8% of the cases in period I and 72.4% in period II, with an overtriage of 18.6% and 20.7% respectively (kappa = 0.75, kappa = 0.70 respectively). In our study, nurse triage was safe and effective in classifying patients to urgency categories. The results are consistent and even improved over a 3-year period. The rates of incorrect classification, deterioration, and delay of treatment of patients because of incorrect triage are very low. Most of the patients were examined by the physician within the expected time. Triage nurse predicted correctly the urgency category of patients with chest in most of the cases and the rate of missing acute coronary events was very low.

Chest Pain↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Triage accuracy at a multiple casualty incident disaster drill: the Emergency Medical Service, Fire Department of New York City experience.

We sought to evaluate the accuracy and speed for the triage of multiple patients during a disaster drill by Emergency Medical Service (EMS) personnel. During a disaster drill (train collision with blast injury and chemical release), the accuracy and speed of triage of 130 patient-actors by the Fire Department of New York City (FDNY) EMS personnel was evaluated using the Simple Triage and Rapid Treatment (START) triage system. All EMS personnel had been previously trained in START, but refresher training was not administered before the drill. Overall triage accuracy was 78%. In patients that had additional changes in their status during the triage process (injects), 62% were retriaged appropriately. Because of security and decontamination procedures, triage at the triage/treatment area began 40 minutes after the drill commenced. It took 2 hours and 38 minutes to completely clear the scene of all patients. On average, the time from the start of triage to transport was 1 hour and 2 minutes. Despite the fact that triage is a skill practiced by every EMS system in the country on a daily basis, few studies regarding triage accuracy are available. Limited data suggest that the triage accuracy rates using different triage strategy algorithms are approximately 45% to 55%. During this drill, FDNY-EMS triage accuracy using the START system exceeded these expectations. This study provides insight as to the triage experience of a large urban EMS system operating at a disaster drill.

Algorithms↗