Triage - Part 1

Triage is a very important skill for emergency nurses to pick up during their course of their nursing career as an emergency nurse. It is because triage decision making is an every day practice in the emergency department and decision made may affect the patient's timely care and outcomes.

For novice emergency nurse, the blog will introduce you to the concept of triage and what's involves in doing triage.

Note:

You are not expected to do triage without supervision

To be able to triage in ambulatory areas, the triage nurse need to be experienced and undergone in house triage officer's course or external course.

Other self learning triage course modules are available here.

Triage is defined as " the categorization of patients to determine their priorities in medical attention, treatment and disposal"

There is other definitions of triage here.

In Australia, College of emergency nursing has a position statement for triage nurse to define their role( However their triage system slightly differ from us).

Principles of triage:

1. Should be immediate and timely
2. Assessment should be adequate and accurate
3. Decisions are made based on assessment
4. Provide intervention according to acuity of condition
5. Patient satisfactionis achieved through establishment of a good rapport and support of their emotional needs.

Triage process in summary: Right patient to the right place at the right time at the right care provider

Part 2, we shall discuss the triage system used in Singapore.