Field triage in disasters

Abstract

In man-made and natural disasters, prehospital providers and their emergency medical services systems may find it necessary to shift their triage methodology from a daily operational framework of treating the most severely injured patient first and providing the highest level of care for each patient to the concept of providing the greatest good for the greatest number of casualties. In a scenario where there are an overwhelming number of casualties, this shift will be necessary, both to identify critically injured patients who can benefit from immediate, life-saving interventions and to preserve prehospital and hospital resources. This report examines triage issues as they apply to mass casualty events.