2020 Volume 23 Issue 6 Pages 799-805
Purpose: We conducted a single center retrospective study to examine the effectiveness of in-hospital triage using JTAS and to clarify the cause of undertriage.
Methods: Subjects of this study were the patients who visit the emergency department of Kurashiki Central Hospital and were triaged in the year from October 2016. We defined undertriage cases as a patient that nurse has classified to level 4 or 5, and determined as level 1 to 3 by an emergency physician. We investigated age, sex, disease category, and cause of undertriage for all undertriage cases.
Results: During the study period, 46,711 patients were triaged. A total of 33,827 patients were assessed as level 4 or 5, from which 128 were determined as cases of undertriage. The rate of undertriage was 0.4%. Both for adults and for children, the most common causes of undertriage were underestimate of vital sign abnormalities, and the most common categories of diseases were infectious disease.
Conclusions: In this hospital, in-hospital triage was performed with a low undertriage rate using the JTAS system. By paying attention to vital sign abnormalities, we may be able to prevent undertriage.
