• Doğaç Niyazi Ozüçelik, Mehmet Mahir Kunt, Mehmet Ali Karaca, Bülent Erbil, Bülent Sivri, Ahmet Sahin, Yeşim Cetinkaya Şardan, Mehmet Mahir Ozmen, and Bahar Güçiz Doğan.
• Department of Emergency Medicine, Hacettepe University, Ankara, Turkey. dogacniyazi@gmail.com
• Ulus Travma Acil Cer. 2013 May 1;19(3):205-14.

BackgroundTo compare ESI Five-Level Triage System with 5-Level Hacettepe Emergency Triage System (HETS), which was developed for Overcrowded EDs in our country.MethodsOver a period of six days, patients were assessed by a different ED staff everyday using HETS, then re-evaluated blindly by an emergency physician using HETS. Then patients were evaluated blindly for a third time by an independent, ESI-using emergency physician.ResultsOf the patients in the study, 133 were men, 175 were women and the average age was 44.41±18.033. Inter-rater agreement was 97.40% (Kappa=0.963) between HETS and HETS-Blind, 74.35% (Kappa=0.646) between HETS and ESI-Blind, 74.67% (Kappa=0.652) between HETS-Blind and ESI-Blind. Inter-observer agreement between the second emergency physician performing HETS-Blind and the first emergency physician, resident, or nurse was very good (Kappa=1.0). Intern doctor, non-medical secretary and paramedic were found to have almost very good agreement (Kappa=0.971; 0.935; 0.864, respectively). An overtriage of 7.25% and undertriage of 1.08% were found in HETS.ConclusionComplaint-based HEST developed for overcrowded Eds is a triage system with a very good agreement between observations and observers. Low undertriage and overtriage ratios, and easy application by all staff from a non-medical secretary to the emergency physician.

16 keywords...

hide…