Emergency Room Triage System In Emergency Department

Triage is a process that is critical to the effective management of modern emergency departments.

Emergency room triage system in emergency department.

The trauma room an acute treatment area the rapid assessment zone or the fast track unit. Triage is the process by which emergency departments eds sort patients presenting for medical treatment. When patients report to the emergency department of upmc western maryland our staff uses a method called triage to determine who needs to be seen first. Esi triage is based on the acuity of patients health care problems and the number of resources their care is anticipated to require.

Emergency department triage is increasingly instrumental in ensuring high quality timely care. Using triage in the emergency department started in the early 1960s when there was more demand for medical care and less medical emergency resources farrokhnia göransson 2011 and is now accepted as the golden standard to promote safe practice and reliable and effective systems mistry et al 2018. Triagecan be defined as the prioritization of patient carebased on the severity of injury illness prognosis and availability of resources. As ed volumes have increased so have wait times.

The emergency severity index esi is a five level emergency department triage algorithm initially developed in 1999. Based on the evaluation the triage nurse decides if the patient needs immediate medical attention or if it is safe for them to wait. Rather than operating on a first come first served system like you would expect at a restaurant emergency departments use the triage system to sort patients into categories so that they can attend to patients who need urgent help first. Wait times and high left without being seen rate indicate emergency department overcrowding.

A triage system is the essential structure by which all incoming emergency patients are prioritised using a standard rating scale. Triage is the name of the system that is used to sort when and where patients will be seen in an emergency department. Ed wait times and lwbs rates are indicators of ed overcrowding. It is maintained by the agency for healthcare research and quality ahrq.

The purpose of a triage system is to ensure that the level of emergency care provided is commensurate with clinical criteria. Every emergency department has a triage or triaging area to sort incoming patients. The nurse also decides where to direct the patient for treatment within the ed.