Emergency medicine journal : EMJ
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To investigate whether nurses performing triage are able to predict the need for admission of patients attending the emergency department (ED) with sufficient accuracy to facilitate hospital bed management. ⋯ Predicting admission at triage is not sufficiently accurate to inform hospital in-patient bed management systems. The decision to admit can only be determined after a comprehensive clinical work up and patients cannot be accurately 'signposted' during the triage process.