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Review
. 2021 Apr 17;21(8):2845.
doi: 10.3390/s21082845.

E-Triage Systems for COVID-19 Outbreak: Review and Recommendations

Fahd Alhaidari  1 , Abdullah Almuhaideb  1 , Shikah Alsunaidi  2 , Nehad Ibrahim  2 , Nida Aslam  2 , Irfan Ullah Khan  2 , Fatema Shaikh  3 , Mohammed Alshahrani  4 , Hajar Alharthi  2 , Yasmine Alsenbel  2 , Dima Alalharith  2
Affiliations
Review

E-Triage Systems for COVID-19 Outbreak: Review and Recommendations

Fahd Alhaidari et al. Sensors (Basel). .

Abstract

With population growth and aging, the emergence of new diseases and immunodeficiency, the demand for emergency departments (EDs) increases, making overcrowding in these departments a global problem. Due to the disease severity and transmission rate of COVID-19, it is necessary to provide an accurate and automated triage system to classify and isolate the suspected cases. Different triage methods for COVID-19 patients have been proposed as disease symptoms vary by country. Still, several problems with triage systems remain unresolved, most notably overcrowding in EDs, lengthy waiting times and difficulty adjusting static triage systems when the nature and symptoms of a disease changes. In this paper, we conduct a comprehensive review of general ED triage systems as well as COVID-19 triage systems. We identified important parameters that we recommend considering when designing an e-Triage (electronic triage) system for EDs, namely waiting time, simplicity, reliability, validity, scalability, and adaptability. Moreover, the study proposes a scoring-based e-Triage system for COVID-19 along with several recommended solutions to enhance the overall outcome of e-Triage systems during the outbreak. The recommended solutions aim to reduce overcrowding and overheads in EDs by remotely assessing patients' conditions and identifying their severity levels.

Keywords: COVID-19; clinical diagnosis; diseases; emergency department; healthcare operations; priority; public healthcare; triage system.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Patient classification approaches in EDs.
Figure 2
Figure 2
EP classification of ED patients [8].
Figure 3
Figure 3
Patients priority (the number next to each point represents the patient group) [45].
Figure 4
Figure 4
Delay-based triage systems to prioritize patients [49].
Figure 5
Figure 5
The procedure followed in the ED.
Figure 6
Figure 6
Triage Protocol by CDC [60].
Figure 7
Figure 7
Virtual Triage Checklist at MOH, version v1.3 [64].
Figure 8
Figure 8
A flowchart of COVID-19 treatment in in Wuhan fever clinics [83].
Figure 9
Figure 9
COVID-19 Symptoms.
Figure 10
Figure 10
Triage system evaluation parameters.
Figure 11
Figure 11
Prevalence of reported COVID-19 symptoms.
Figure 12
Figure 12
Classification criteria of COVID-19 for remote patients.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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