-
Emergency department triage: a program assessment using the tools of continuous quality improvement.
- S Cook and D Sinclair.
- Queen Elizabeth II Health Sciences Center, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.
- J Emerg Med. 1997 Nov 1; 15 (6): 889-94.
AbstractAn assessment was undertaken in the emergency department of a busy tertiary care center to illustrate the role of continuous quality improvement in the evaluation of an emergency triage program that utilizes the emergency medical attendant to provide triage. An evaluation team interviewed triage staff, charge nurses, internal customers, risk management, and the patient representative. A detailed review of staff job descriptions, organization charts, orientation manual, and physical facilities was conducted. A chart audit was completed on 100 triage notes. Direct observation was undertaken on nine occasions. An evaluation of the data gathered was performed using the tools of continuous quality improvement, and resulted in specific recommendations being made to improve the process of care. It was concluded that emergency medical attendants function very well in an emergency medicine triage system and the tools of continuous quality improvement can be applied to a clinical service to improve the quality of care.
Notes
Knowledge, pearl, summary or comment to share?You can also include formatting, links, images and footnotes in your notes
- Simple formatting can be added to notes, such as
*italics*,_underline_or**bold**. - Superscript can be denoted by
<sup>text</sup>and subscript<sub>text</sub>. - Numbered or bulleted lists can be created using either numbered lines
1. 2. 3., hyphens-or asterisks*. - Links can be included with:
[my link to pubmed](http://pubmed.com) - Images can be included with:
 - For footnotes use
[^1](This is a footnote.)inline. - Or use an inline reference
[^1]to refer to a longer footnote elseweher in the document[^1]: This is a long footnote..