Prehospital triage in emergency medical services system: A scoping review

Abstract

Background: During the prehospital phase, paramedics consider patients' condition according to illness, injury, disease and decide on transport to an appropriate hospital according to severity. This can affect patient survival and treatment prognosis, because despite intervention at this early stage, problems such as incorrect triage of severity and inappropriate hospital selection may occur, indicating a need for improvement in the process.

Purpose: The aim of this review is to identify the overall trend of research conducted on prehospital triage by analyzing the emergency medical services system and presenting future studies to practitioners and researchers.

Methods: A scoping review was conducted of existing literature on research trends in relation to prehospital triage. The studies reviewed were identified using electronic databases such as PubMed, CINAHL, Cochrane Library, Web of Science, and Scopus.

Results: Ninety-eight documents were finally selected and analyzed that focused on prehospital triage status, process accuracy, tools, guidelines, and protocols.

Conclusion: Research is proposed that focuses on various non-traumatic patient types, prehospital triage education, and development of training programs to reduce errors in the emergency patient handover process between prehospital and hospital health professionals and to improve patient health and quality of life.

Keywords: Decision making; Emergency health service; Emergency medical services; Prehospital emergency care; Scoping review; Triage.