Muhammad Latif Aftab, Noor-ul Hassan, Muhammad Nasir, Sarosh Fatima, Nasir Hassan.
Impact of Triage System Implementation in Fatima Memorial Hospital Emergency Department.
Pak J Med Health Sci Jan ;12(4):1710-12.

Aim: To assess the impact of Triage system on patients (a ) Waiting for examination and treatment (b ) Total stay of patient in Emerge ncy Room ( ER ) and (c) patient satisfaction about redressal of their problems . Methods : It was a retrospective observational study. Data was consulted from the patient record, three hundred (300) cases were included on each arm of the date of implementation of The triage system in emergency department of Fatima Memorial Hospital Lahore. All adults (>15 years) were included except the pronounced dead cases before arrival. The data of (a) waiting time i.e. time from the registration to the time of examination commenced by the doctor .(b) Length of stay of patient in emergency department and (c) patient satisfaction Results: Triage system resulted in remarkable reduction in time taken for the patients to wait for his treatment and total time of his stay in ER.(p. <0.01) Waiting time was properly distributed among critical and non-critical patients.Although waiting time of non-critical cases was relatively longer, the average time was reduced and the satisfaction of both critical and non-critical cases improved from 53.33% to 84% as regards to redressal of their problems.(p. <0. 001).Conclusion: Although it was early phase of introduction of this system and it was facing many obstacles like shortage of staff, lack of proper skill of staff and insufficient area of emergency department, the triage system yielded significant predictable results in achieving better treatment satisfaction in shorter time. The need of time is to adopt this system in our emergency departments and to improve it by proper interventions like making some amendments, process re-devising and proper training of the staff. By which we may be able to facilitate the hospital for their own as well as patient satisfaction.

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