• Journal of Convergence for Information Technology
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• v.10 no.4
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• pp.98-103
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• 2020

The purpose of this study was to determine whether the results of KTAS(Korean Triage and Acuity Scale) triage classifier differ according to the occupations. We analyzed a total of 10,960,359 cases of data sent to the NEDIS from January 1st, 2016 to December 31th, 2017. The triage classifier were MD(Medical Doctor), R(Resident), INT(Intern), GP(General Practitioner), RN(Registered Nurses) and EMT(Emergency Medical Technician). The consistency between the initial triage and final triage results was the highest GP(98.9%) and the lowest INT(80.2%). The results of over-triage classification was the lowest by GP(0.6%) and the highest for INT(16.0%). Also, the results of under-triage classification was the lowest by MD, EMT(0.4%) and the highest for INT(3.8%). The results of KTAS triage classifier significantly differ from according to the occupations(p<0.001). Triage classification should not differ from according to occupations and skill. It is necessary to strengthen the classifier's capacity for accurate triage classifications.

• Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing
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• v.49 no.2
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• pp.171-180
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• 2019

Purpose: The Korean Triage and Acuity Scale (KTAS) is a tool used to classify the severity and urgency of emergency department (ED) patients, focusing on their symptoms. In consideration of the importance of the KTAS, a web-based learning program has emerged as a new mode of education; it enables ED triage nurses to access it anytime and anywhere, and according to their own learning abilities. This study aimed to develop a web-based KTAS learning program and evaluate its effects on self-efficacy and triage performance ability in ED nurses. Methods: A quasi-experimental design with a non-equivalent control group pretest-posttest was used. The conceptual framework was Bandura's self-efficacy theory. There were 30 participants in the experimental group and 29 in the control group. The experimental group attended an orientation and 4 sessions of a web-based KTAS learning program. The learning program lasted 280 minutes over five weeks, consisting of 40 minutes of orientation and four 60-minute sessions. Results: The scores of self-efficacy, triage performance ability in KTAS level, and chief complaints significantly increased in the experimental group compared to the control group. In addition, the numbers of under-triage in KTAS significantly decreased in the experimental group in comparison to the control group. Conclusion: The results suggest that the learning program was effective in improving ED nurses' level of self-efficacy and triage performance ability (KTAS level and KTAS chief complaint). Accordingly, the web-based KTAS learning program can be applied as an education intervention to improve ED nurses' triage skill.

• Journal of Korean Critical Care Nursing
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• v.5 no.2
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• pp.61-71
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• 2012

Purpose: The aim of this study was to measure the inter-rater reliability of Emergency severity index (ESI) version 4 among triage nurse. Methods: This study was carried out from August 11, 2010 to September 7, 2010 in a regional emergency department. Data collection was done by ten triage nurses who trained ESI v.4. Two research nurses and ten triage nurses scored the ESI version 4 to the patients as references, independently. We calculated the weighted kappa between the triage nurses and research nurses to evaluate the consistency of the ESI v.4. Results: A total of 233 patients were enrolled in this study. Classification of ESI level was as follows - level 1 (0.4%), level 2 (21.0%), level 3 (67.8%), level 4 (9.4%), and level 5 (1.3%). Inter-rater reliability by weighted kappa was 0.79 (95% Confidence Interval= 0.74-0.83) and agreement rate was 87.1%. Under-triage rate by triage nurse was 6.0% and over-triage rate was 6.9%. Conclusion: For this study, inter-rater reliability was measured good level between triage nurses and research nurses in Korean single ED.

• Journal of Trauma and Injury
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• v.33 no.1
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• pp.13-17
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• 2020

Purpose: Accurate and appropriate prehospital field triage is essential for a trauma system. The Korean trauma system (established in 2014) uses the trauma field triage algorithm of the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). This study evaluated the suitability of the CDC field triage criteria for major trauma cases (injury severity score >15) in Korea. Methods: This retrospective cohort study evaluated trauma patients who presented at the authors' regional trauma center from January 1 to May 7, 2017. The undertriage and overtriage rates of each CDC field triage step were calculated. Receiver operating characteristic curves were constructed, and the area under the curve (AUC) was evaluated for each step. Results: Among the 1,009 enrolled patients, 168 (16.7%) had major trauma. The undertriage/overtriage rates of each step (steps I, II, III, and IV) of CDC field triage were 9.2%/47.4%, 6.3%/50.8%, 4.5%/59.4%, and 5.3%/78.9%, respectively. The AUC values of each CDC triage step were 0.722, 0.783, 0.791, and 0.615, respectively. The AUC values of the separate components of each step (physiologic criteria, anatomic criteria, mechanism-of-injury criteria, and special considerations) were 0.722, 0.648, 0.647, and 0.456, respectively. Conclusions: The CDC field triage system is acceptable, but not ideal, for Korean trauma care. If we follow the protocol, it would be preferable to omit step IV. The Korean Triage and Acuity Scale may be a good indicator for in-hospital triage. However, a new triage protocol that is simple to estimate on-scene while having good performance should be developed.

• Journal of Medicine and Life Science
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.7-15
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• 2020

The field triage guidelines have been widely implemented in the Korean trauma system. This study aimed to evaluate and validate whether it is reliable to use the field triage guidelines for predicting severe traumatic brain injury (TBI) and traumatic spinal injury (TSI) patients. This study retrospectively analyzed in-hospital cohort registries of all TBI and TSI patients, who visited the emergency department (ED) of the Jeju National University Hospital from 1 January 2013 to 31 December 2015. The primary outcome was defined as TBI and TSI patients with an injury severity score (ISS)>15. Secondary outcomes were defined as cases in which one or more of the following conditions: in-hospital death, ISS>15, admission to the intensive care unit, emergency surgery. We enrolled 14,889 TBI and TSI patients who visited ED, of which 7,966 (53.5%) were triage positive. The overall sensitivity, specificity and area under the curve (AUC) of the full cumulative field triage guidelines step's model (Step 1+3+4 criteria) for primary outcome were 82.8%, 47.0%, and 0.646, respectively. In the results for secondary outcomes, the specificity did not show a significant difference, but the sensitivity decreased to 66.5% and AUC to 0.568. The results of this study suggest that further optimization of the field triage guidelines is needed to identify high-risk TBI and TSI patients.

• Journal of Trauma and Injury
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• v.27 no.4
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• pp.126-132
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• 2014

Purpose: The field trauma triage for injured patients is essential for trauma care system. In this study, agreement of patient evaluation between by prehospital EMS personnel and by hospital staffs and the appropriateness of prehospital triage were evaluated. Methods: This observational study was conducted from September to October 2012 for 5 weeks. During this period, EMT evaluated patient's severity according to guideline for field triage and recorded. Same guideline was applied in 26 hospitals for patients with EMS use. Kappa statistics were used to measure agreement for each item of guideline. Finally, over-triage and under-triage rate of EMT were calculated. Results: During study period, total 3,106 patients were transferred to 26 hospital emergency departments with EMS use. Kappa statistics for "vital signs" items were 0.45 for mentality lower than V and 0.44 for systolic blood pressure lower than 90 mmHg as a moderate agreement. In "anatomy of injury" items Kappa statistics were very low. In "mechanism of injury" items Kappa statistics were 0.28 for high-rise fall down and 0.27 for high energy traffic accident but in other items Kappa statistics were very low. 362 patients (12.0%) were over-triaged and 281 patients (9.3%) were under-triaged. Conclusion: Field triage can be applied but need to evaluate and modify in order to become accurate and sensitive for decision of transportation.

• Pediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology & Nutrition
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.278-288
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• 2018

Purpose: Dehydration is a paediatric medical emergency but there is no single standard parameter to evaluate it at the emergency department. Our aim was to evaluate the reliability and validity of capillary refilling time as a triage parameter to assess dehydration in children. Methods: This was a prospective pilot cohort study of children who presented to two paediatric emergency departments in Italy, with symptoms of dehydration. Reliability was assessed by comparing the triage nurse's measurements with those obtained by the physician. Validity was demonstrated by using 6 parameters suggestive of dehydration. Comparison between refilling time (RT) and a validated Clinical Dehydration Score (CDS) was also considered. The scale's discriminative ability was evaluated for the outcome of starting intravenous rehydration therapy by using a receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve. Results: Participants were 242 children. All nurses found easy to elicit the RT after being trained. Interobserver reliability was fair, with a Cohen's kappa of 0.56 (95% confidence interval [CI], 0.41 to 0.70). There was a significant correlation between RT and weight loss percentage (r-squared=-0.27; 95% CI, -0.47 to -0.04). The scale's discriminative ability yielded an area under the ROC curve (AUC) of 0.65 (95% CI, 0.57 to 0.73). We found a similarity between RT AUC and CDS-scale AUC matching the two ROC curves. Conclusion: The study showed that RT represents a fast and handy tool to recognize dehydrated children who need a prompt rehydration and may be introduced in the triage line-up.

• Child Health Nursing Research
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• v.5 no.2
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• pp.136-150
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• 1999

The subjects, under 18 old, 2,694 children who visited ER during 1998, were surveyed by the Triage and other statitical data. The results were as follows 1. The male to female ratio was 1.7 : 1, and the toddler(1-4 old) was the majority. 2. Triage ; critical 1.3%, acute 14.6%, urgent 29.5%, nonemergent 54.6%. 3. The reasons of visiting ER ; 1) The children had diseases(46.5%), injury (36.9%), TA(5.6%) and toxication(1.0%). 2) In diseases, male to female ratio was 1.5 : 1 and in injury, male to female was 2 : 1. 3) Among the children having in TA, 12-18 old groups was the majority(34.9%). 4. The time of visiting : the 20:00 - 22:00 was the majority(16.9%). 5. By monthly and seasonal distribution ; Jan. (9.7%), Mar. and May(9% respectively, Dec. and July(6.7%) respectively. The children who visted ER in spring and autumn showed higher portion than those of summer and winter. 6. Results ; admission(27.4%), discharge(68.4%), operations(2.8%), and DOA and DAA(0.4%), The mortality of the infancy and toddler groups was 83.3%. The infancy group showed the highest rate of admission. 7. The time of staying in ER ; 1-2 hrs was the major group(23.3%) and the average was 4.6 hours. 8. By clinical departments ; Ped. was 34.4%, PS was 20.8%, Dental Surgery was 10.3% and Dermatology was 0.9%. 9. The types of visting ; the group who visited by themselves was 80%, transfer from the primary and secondary clinic was 17% and OPD was 3.0%. 10. The traffic means . by the own cars and taxi were 87.6%, by hospital ambulance was 6.1% and by 119 ambulance was 4.3%.

• Journal of Trauma and Injury
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.71-77
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• 2008

Purpose: The Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS), though it is widely used for triage, has been criticized as being unnecessarily complex. Recently, a 3-point Simplified Motor Score (SMS, defined as obeys commands=2; localizes pain=1; withdrawals to pain or worse=0) was developed from the motor component of the GCS and was found to have a similar test performance for triage after traumatic brain injury when compared with the GCS as the criterion standard. The purpose of this study was to validate the SMS. Methods: We analyzed the patients who visited Kyungpook National University Hospital emergency center after traumatic brain injury from 2006 January to 2006 June. The test performance of the GCS, its motor component, and SMS relative to three clinically relevant traumatic brain injury outcomes (abnormal brain CT scans, Abbreviated Injury Scale $(AIS){\geq}4$, and mortality) were evaluated with areas under the receiver operating characteristic curves (AUCs). Results: Of 504 patients included in the analysis, 25.6% had an abnormal brain CT scans, 13.1% had $AIS{\geq}4$, and 5.0% died. The AUCs for the GCS, its motor component, and SMS with respect to the abnormal CT scans were 0.776, 0.715, and 0.716, and respectively, those for $AIS{\geq}4$ and mortality, were 0.969, 0.973, and 0.968, and 0.931, 0.909, and 0.909, respectively. Conclusion: The 3-point SMS demonstrated similar test performance when compared with the 15-point GCS score and its motor component for triage after traumatic brain injury in our populations.

• Journal of Trauma and Injury
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.67-73
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• 2006

Purpose: The arterial base deficit (BD) has proven to be useful in the evaluation and management of trauma patients. Indicators such as the Triage-Revised Trauma Score (t-RTS) and the systemic inflammatory response syndrome (SIRS) score have been used as triage tools for emergency trauma patients in Korea. The purpose of this study was to assess the usefulness of the initial BD in predicting injury severity and outcome in the trauma population. Methods: The medical records of 308 consecutive trauma patients admitted to the Emergency Center of Masan Samsung Hospital from January 2004 to December 2004 were carefully examined prospectively and retrospectively, and 291 patients were selected as subjects for this research. The SIRS score and the t-RTS were calculated based on the records from the emergency department, and the BD was calculated based on the arterial blood gas analysis obtained within 30 minutes of admission. The efficiency of the three indicators as triage tools was evaluated by using cross tabulations in two - by - two matrices and by using a receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis. Results: When the mortality was used as the outcome parameter, the sensitivity and the accuracy of the initial BD were higher than those of the SIRS score (p<0.05) and were same as those of the t-RTS. The areas under the ROC curves of the initial BD, the SIRS score, and the t-RTS were $0.740{\pm}0.087$, $0.696{\pm}0.082$, and $0.871{\pm}0.072$, respectively (95% confidence interval). When emergency operation and blood transfusion requirements were used as outcome parameters, the comparisons of the sensitivities and the accuracies of the initial BD and the other two indicators showed the same pattern as mentioned above. The areas under the ROC curves of the initial BD were 0.7~0.8 and were larger than those of the SIRS score (p<0.05). Conclusion: The ability of the initial BD to predict injury severity and outcome was similar to those of the t-RTS and the SIRS score. Therefore, the authors suggest that the initial BD may be used as an alternative to previous triage tools for trauma patients.