BACKGROUND. The Modified Early Warning Score (MEWS) is used to monitor medical inpatients in hospitals in the developed world. The South African Triage Score (SATS) was developed from the MEWS, and its use throughout South Africa has been proposed. OBJECTIVES. We aimed to assess the effectiveness of the SATS in an emergency department (ED) in a rural setting in KwaZulu-Natal (KZN). METHODS. A p...

273 May 2013, Vol. 103, No. 5 SAMJ An adapted triage tool (ETAT) at Red Cross War Memorial Children’s Hospital Medical Emergency Unit, Cape Town, South Africa: An evaluation To the Editor: In the March issue of SAMJ, an article on the emergency triage of children, of which we were the senior co-authors, appeared in association with an editorial by Professor Elizabeth Molyneux. We need to clarif...

BACKGROUND The Emergency Severity Index (ESI) is an English language emergency department patient triage tool. After translation, it has been adapted for use to triage patients in growing numbers of emergency departments in non-English-speaking countries. Few reports of the proficiency of triage nurses to score an ESI exist. We sought to determine accuracy, inter-rater reliability, and subjecti...

Background Critically ill patients are likely to benefit from being received by a predefined multidisciplinary team providing a structured and well qualified initial examination and immediate treatment of life-threatening conditions. At Viborg Hospital all critically ill non-trauma adult patients have been received by an emergency medical team (EMT) since January 1st 2012. The EMT is a preforme...

Triage in emergency response refers to determining the priority of victims based on their need for treatment and medical intervention. Today, triage is performed by the use of paper-based triage tags. Communication about patients' status is mainly carried out over radio or through handwritten notes. This practice makes it challenging for emergency personnel to keep an overview of the number, lo...

In order to allocate the healthcare resource, triage classification system plays an important role in assessing the severity of illness of the boarding patient at emergency department. The self-report pain intensity numerical-rating scale (NRS) is one of the major modifiers of the current triage system based on the Taiwan Triage and Acuity Scale (TTAS). The validity and reliability of self-repo...

[1] in taking on the diffi cult dilemmas surrounding triage management and training tied to surge capacity and resource allocation within intensive care settings during pandemics. Studies on triage protocols arose primarily from critical care professionals awakened to those respon sibilities during severe acute respiratory syndrome and then re-challenged during the current H1N1 pandemic [2-4]. ...

conclusions according to the results, there was a direct correlation between access to physical space in ed and waiting time. in addition, improving the physical access did not necessarily result in shorter waiting time. therefore, to improve triage process, improvement of waiting time indices, and modifying forms of work process in ed are recommended. results the correlation between the waitin...

INTRODUCTION Overcrowding in emergency departments (EDs) has become a serious problem for many EDs in this country. As a result, patients may wait longer time periods after triage prior to evaluation by the ED physician. This places additional importance of initial “at the door” triage as potentially sick patients may be subject to very long waits. Minor misjudgments at triage are an expected p...

The emergency medical services (EMS) cover initiatives and services established to provide essential medical assistance in situations of acute illness. Triage-methods for systematic prioritizing of patients according to how urgent patients need care, including triage of requests of acute medical treatment, are adopted in hospitals as well as in the pre-hospital settings. This systematic review ...