Clinical

A Study of the Workforce for an ED Triage Area in a Tertiary Care Hospital

Methods

The study was performed by directly observing the triage staff in the emergency department of a 650-bed tertiary care hospital in Turkey from October 1 to 31, 2003. The emergency department is divided into 2 main areas, an acute care area and an ambulatory patient area, containing a total of 10 and 14 beds, respectively. All patients present from a single entrance where their triage is done by EMT-paramedics, who are graduates of a 2-year professional education program after high school. There

Results

Before the direct observation for measuring workload, the job description of triage staff was revised. Triage staff were responsible for performing triage of all patients older than 15 years and pediatric trauma patients (0 to 14 years old), as well as all intrahospital or interhospital transfer patients. A list of all tasks done by the staff was grouped into 11 items. The frequency and estimated duration of each item were determined, and the sampling size was obtained as in Table 3. Annual

Discussion

Many countries around the world are currently reforming their health care systems. The focus of change is generally concerned with ensuring adequate financing of the health sector, equitable distribution of the benefits of publicly funded services, more efficient use of resources, increasing the influence that users have over the form and content of services, and assurance that the population will have access to health care in case of serious accident or illness.²

Whatever the specific

Acknowledgment

We thank Seref Dilekci for his work in analyzing data and Dr Sandra Ugras for her valuable comments on drafts of this article.