Systematic Review of “Senior Physician at Triage”

Researchers conducted a systematic review of the literature describing the effect of having of a “senior physician at triage” (either alone or with other medical staff) — rather than traditional nursing-driven triage — on common emergency department (ED) performance measures. A senior physician was defined as one with “high specialty training in emergency medicine.”

Of 4506 articles identified, only 25 met all inclusion criteria (16 observational before–after studies, 3 cohort studies, 4 randomized, controlled trials, and 2 clinical, controlled trials). Using a global rating tool, the researchers determined that 12 studies had weak quality, 9 moderate quality, and 4 strong quality.

Two randomized, controlled trials described a significant red…