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Emergency Room Triage Guidelines

Triage is defined as sorting and allocating treatment to patients based upon the severity of their conditions. Patients are sorted by a system which sets priorities designed to increase the number of people who survive. Triage protocols are often used in cases of combat or disaster situations when a large number of patients require treatment at once.

  1. The Importance of Triage

    • Triage is required for the effective management of an emergency situation. This means patients are not seen according to when they arrive at the hospital, but are seen according to guidelines which determine who needs care most urgently and where care is most likely to be successful. In order to remove confusion and misgivings, guidelines are in place which help health care professionals to know how to prioritize. The importance of this discipline can never be overstated, when one takes into consideration the fact that in 2008, nearly 120 million emergency department visits were made to hospitals in the US.

    Triage Guidelines

    • Typically in an Emergency Room, or what is called an Emergency Department (ED), triage guidelines begin with general policies including registration, documentation and referrals. When the actual triage work starts, guidelines are given to classify patients into priority levels I, II, III and IV based on factors relating to medical needs, social service needs, mental health needs and substance abuse needs. When a caregiver gets several patients at the same time, the guidelines have to be adhered to and a response has to be undertaken. A lot depends on the judgment the caregiver makes of the situation. The triage level may be changed if the caregiver feels the need to do so, but this usually has to be done in consultation with the doctor.

    Classifying Patients

    • The ailments that qualify for Priority Level I medical needs include profuse bleeding, acute chest pains, unconsciousness and other severe conditions. Patients who get admitted with such needs are classified as priority Level I and need to be attended to first. This is followed by priority level II, cases which include abscesses, a 2nd or 3rd trimester of pregnancy with no prenatal care or a situation in which the patient has run out of seizure or other life saving medications. Level III ailments include less serious conditions such as unexplaind coughing, or pain that could suggest the need for treatment but that does not indicate a life-threatening condition. Level IV ailments are minor ailments such as non-life threatening conditions, small cuts and bruises or other conditions that neither cause great pain nor threaten overall health and well-being.

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