TrIAGE: Triage Improvements Across General Emergency departments, v2
Research type
Research Study
Full title
TrIAGE: Triage Improvements Across General Emergency departments
IRAS ID
151777
Contact name
Ian Maconochie
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Erasmus Medical Centre
Research summary
-Improving the triage for children visiting the emergency department: the TrIAGE project
Triage is an important intervention to manage patient flow safely at the Emergency Department (ED) and to ensure that patients who need direct medical attention are correctly identified and timely treated. Triage involves the quick assessment of all patients entering the ED by a nurse who determines their urgency level and the maximum time they are allowed to wait. Several triage systems are being used, of which the Manchester Triage System (MTS) is the most common in Europe.
Children are at particular risk of undertriage, since their presenting features are often difficult to interpret and diseases can deteriorate rapidly. There is a need for improvement of existing triage methods for this vulnerable patient group. A new and promising approach for triaging children are the “Pediatric Early Warning Scores”(PEWS). These are scoring systems based on objective physiological measurements (e.g. heart rate, respiratory rate, temperature). In several emergency departments in the United Kingdom, PEWS have been implemented as an alternative to triage. However, evidence for their safety and validity is lacking.
TrIAGE stands for Triage Improvements Across General Emergency Departments and is a collaboration between several European hospitals based in the Netherlands, United Kingdom, Portugal, Switzerland and Austria. The network aims to improve the triage of children and increase their safety at the emergency department. To achieve this, a multicentre prospective observational study will be performed in various emergency care settings in Europe. Electronic data of all patients visiting the ED will be collected and stored in a research database. This will enable the comparison of triage by the MTS with triage by the PEWS on effectiveness, safety and quality of care. Due to the large patient numbers, adaptations of both systems can be studied and options for improvement validated.REC name
Wales REC 7
REC reference
14/WA/1051
Date of REC Opinion
2 Jul 2014
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion