A review of triage accuracy and future direction

In the emergency department, it is important to identify and prioritize who requires an urgent intervention in a short time. Triage helps recognize the urgency among patients. An accurate triage decision helps patients receive the emergency service in the most appropriate time. Various triage system...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:BMC emergency medicine 2018-12, Vol.18 (1), p.58-7, Article 58
Main Authors: Tam, Hon Lon, Chung, Siu Fung, Lou, Chi Kin
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Accuracy
Clinical decision making
Collaboration
Decision making
Discovery tools
Distance learning
Emergencies
Emergency medical care
Emergency medical services
Emergency Nursing
Emergency Service, Hospital
Emergency services
Health care
Hospitals
Humans
Keywords
Monitoring
Nurses
Nursing
Patients
Training
Triage - standards
Triage - trends
Triage accuracy
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Summary:In the emergency department, it is important to identify and prioritize who requires an urgent intervention in a short time. Triage helps recognize the urgency among patients. An accurate triage decision helps patients receive the emergency service in the most appropriate time. Various triage systems have been developed and verified to assist healthcare providers to make accurate triage decisions. The triage accuracy can represent the quality of emergency service, but there is a lack of review studies addressing this topic. A literature search was conducted in four electronic databases where 'emergency nursing' and 'triage accuracy' were used as keywords. Studies published from 2008 January to 2018 August were included as potential subjects. Nine studies were included in this review after the inclusion and exclusion criteria were applied. Written case scenarios and retrospective review were commonly used to examine the triage accuracy. The triage accuracy from studies was in moderate level. The single-center studies which held better results than those from multi-center studies revealed the need of triage training and consistent training between emergency departments. Regular refresher triage training, collaboration between emergency departments and continuous monitoring were necessary to strengthen the use of triage systems and improve nurse's triage performance.
ISSN:1471-227X
1471-227X
DOI:10.1186/s12873-018-0215-0