Background
Emergency department triage is designed to quickly identify which patients need immediate attention and which can safely wait. In busy emergency departments, however, triage is not always perfectly accurate. Some patients who are actually quite sick may be classified as lower priority, a problem known as undertriage. Others with relatively low urgency may be assigned a higher priority than necessary, known as overtriage. Both situations can affect how quickly patients receive care and, potentially, their outcomes.
This study examined whether triage mismatch in emergency departments was associated with delays in care, longer stays in the emergency department, admission to intensive care, and short-term mortality. The investigators also explored whether patient history and recent health care use differed among patients who were undertriaged or overtriaged compared with those whose triage status better matched their actual care needs.
