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Life threatening situation? Always call 112
Location Leiderdorp

Part 2 in the series revision of the Directing Physician Process

by Mathilda Boer – Quality Officer

Triage criteria

An important document that explains the triage criteria is the Urgency Codes protocol.  A crucial part of the triage and therefore too crucial to limit it to a link. We would like to explain what we mean by the above triage criteria.

Based on the triage through the NTS, a triagist/doctor’s assistant comes up with an urgency code. There are a number of general triage criteria that play a role and can increase (⇑) or decrease (⇓) the urgency.

Contextual factors or

Factors that influence the eventual urgencies are:

  • Duration of the complaint and its course;
  • Other diseases and medication use;
  • Communication problems or unclear requests for help;
  • No caregiving.

Risk groups

  • Old age;
  • Age under three months;
  • Pregnant;
  • Chronically ill;
  • Patients with a weakened immune system (chemotherapy, AIDS);
  • Recent surgery or admission;
  • Inconsistent story/narrative doesn’t add up.
    • An example of this is a caregiver who emphasizes that he has concerns about the patient while he himself trivializes the complaints.

Alarms

What are red flags?

  • Second contact;
  • Severe pain, anxiety or agitation (this also applies to the environment that is seriously worried);
  • Rapid deterioration of condition;
  • Non-fluff feeling of the triagist.

In all the above situations, it is good to have the triage nurse adjust the urgency accordingly.

The new document Process Regiearts contains a lot of new information – are you curious? Check out the rewritten document HERE >>.

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