Mandatory Triage Delays Care for High-Acuity Patients

Triage was not completed within the recommended 10 minutes in more than half of high-acuity patients at a single emergency department.

Emergency physicians and nurses rely on triage to sort patients who can wait for care from those who cannot, yet mandatory triage consumes valuable nursing resources and might impede rapid access to care. In a retrospective chart review of all ambulatory patients who presented to a single U.S. academic emergency department (ED) during 2008, researchers assessed compliance with the 5-level Emergency Severity Index (ESI) triage system recommendation that all high-acuity patients (ESI 1 or 2) be treated by a physician within 10 minutes of presentation.

Among 3932 high-acuity ambulatory ED patients (63 ESI 1 and 3869 ESI 2), median time from arrival to completion of triage was 12.3 minutes (range, 0–128 minutes). Triage was completed within 10 m…

Reviewing Author

Richard D. Zane, MD, FAAEM

Disclosures

Nothing to disclose

Richard D. Zane, MD, FAAEM

Disclosures

Nothing to disclose