• Patrick McLane, Cheryl Barnabe, Leslee Mackey, Lea Bill, Katherine Rittenbach, Brian R Holroyd, Anne Bird, Bonnie Healy, Kris Janvier, Eunice Louis, and Rhonda J Rosychuk.
• Alberta Health Services (McLane, Rittenbach, Holroyd), Strategic Clinical Networks; Department of Emergency Medicine (McLane, Mackey, Holroyd), University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alta.; Departments of Medicine and of Community Health Sciences (Barnabe) University of Calgary; Alberta First Nations Information Governance Centre (Bill); Department of Psychiatry (Rittenbach), University of Calgary, Calgary, Alta.; Department of Psychiatry (Rittenbach), University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alta.; Yellowhead Tribal Council (Bird), Edmonton, Alta.; Blackfoot Confederacy Tribal Council (Healy), Standoff, Alta.; Organization of Treaty 8 First Nations of Alberta (Janvier), Edmonton, Alta.; Maskwacis Health Services (Louis), Maskwacis, Alta.; Department of Pediatrics (Rosychuk), Edmonton Clinic Health Academy, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alta. mclane@ualberta.ca.
• CMAJ. 2022 Jan 17; 194 (2): E37-E45.

BackgroundPrevious studies have found that race is associated with emergency department triage scores, raising concerns about potential health care inequity. As part of a project on quality of care for First Nations people in Alberta, we sought to understand the relation between First Nations status and triage scores.MethodsWe conducted a population-based retrospective cohort study of health administrative data from April 2012 to March 2017 to evaluate acuity of triage scores, categorized as a binary outcome of higher or lower acuity score. We developed multivariable multilevel logistic mixed-effects regression models using the levels of emergency department visit, patient (for patients with multiple visits) and facility. We further evaluated the triage of visits related to 5 disease categories and 5 specific diagnoses to better compare triage outcomes of First Nations and non-First Nations patients.ResultsFirst Nations status was associated with lower odds of receiving higher acuity triage scores (odds ratio [OR] 0.93, 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.92-0.94) compared with non-First Nations patients in adjusted models. First Nations patients had lower odds of acute triage for all 5 disease categories and for 3 of 5 diagnoses, including long bone fractures (OR 0.82, 95% CI 0.76-0.88), acute upper respiratory infection (OR 0.90, 95% CI 0.84-0.98) and anxiety disorder (OR 0.67, 95% CI 0.60-0.74).InterpretationFirst Nations status was associated with lower odds of higher acuity triage scores across a number of conditions and diagnoses. This may reflect systemic racism, stereotyping and potentially other factors that affected triage assessments.© 2022 CMA Impact Inc. or its licensors.

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