Scandinavian journal of caring sciences
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Multicenter Study Clinical Trial
Accuracy and concordance of nurses in emergency department triage.
In the emergency department (ED) Registered Nurses (RNs) often perform triage, i.e. the sorting and prioritizing of patients. The allocation of acuity ratings is commonly based on a triage scale. To date, three reliable 5-level triage scales exist, of which the Canadian Triage and Acuity Scale (CTAS) is one. ⋯ Of the 7,550 triage ratings, 57.6% were triaged in concordance with the expected outcome and no scenario was triaged into the same triage level by all RNs. Inter-rater agreement for all RNs was kappa = 0.46 (unweighted) and kappa = 0.71 (weighted). The fact that the kappa-values are only moderate to good and the low concordance between the RNs call for further studies, especially from a patient safety perspective.