How ED Triage Allocations Work
When you enter the emergency department, you may be expecting urgent attention by the medical staff and their prompt care, thinking that you have faced a life-threatening crisis. However, in contrast to your expectation, you may need to wait for a long time and even see other people be attended to first even if they came in later than you.
This may seem confusing, but the ED is not run the same way as clinics where it is mostly first-come-first-serve. Triage, or preliminary assessment of urgency, is carried by a specialised triage nurse, where the level of emergency is determined as soon as a patient arrives. Here, patients are allocated to triage category based on the time in which they need medical attention. In other words, the more seriously ill patients will be served first.
Most public hospitals in NSW use the 5 triage categories to guide hospital staff to see patients according to their level of sickness:
Triage Category 1 – Immediate: life-threatening (to be treated now or within 2 minutes)
Patients in this category are critically ill and require immediate attention. They mostly arrive by ambulance and suffer from a serious injury or cardiac arrest.
Triage Category 2 – Emergency: imminently life-threatening (to be treated with 10 minutes)
Patients in this category express suffering from serious illness and pain. These can be chest pains, difficulty in breathing or critical fractures.
Triage Category 3 – Urgent: potentially life-threatening (to be treated within 30 minutes)
Patients in this category suffer from severe illness such as cuts, heavy bleeding, dehydration or major fractures.
Triage Category 4 – Semi-urgent: not life-threatening (to be treated within 1 hour)
Patients in this category have less serious illness or injuries, such as sprained ankle, migraine or earache.
Triage Category 5 – Non-urgent: needs treatment (to be treated within 2 hours)
Patients in this category have minor illnesses or symptoms that may be prolonged for more than a week. Examples include rashes or minor pains.
Coming to ED by ambulance does not essentially mean you will be seen faster. How long you would wait after seeing the triage nurse would depend on the seriousness of your illness and how busy the department is at the time. The triage nurse will assess patients based on clinical and medical needs.
As balancing the needs of everyone in the ED is a complex and delicate task, it is important to recognise the medical staff’s work. They do their best to minimise the waits and any discomfort of their patients.
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