Abstract
IntroductionThe Irish Children’s Triage System (ICTS) is a child-specific triage tool that should be followed for the prioritization and assessment of pediatric patients presenting to an Emergency Department in Ireland. It categorizes patient into 5 different groups depending on Presenting problem, General appearance, Physiological findings, Age and Significant past medical history that may impact on the current attendance, Red being the most urgent one and patients need to be seen immediately, orange is category 2 and should be seen in less than 10 minutes. Vital signs play a major role on deciding how the patient will be categorized. Sligo University Hospital guidelines advise to check temperature, BM and weight on all infants presenting to ED. Temperature and BM can change the Triage category if one or both were abnormal while weight should be taken for doses to be given and developmental assessment.AimsThe aim of this study is to review current practice in SUH and assess if this follows current guidelines, also check what improvement can be made if these guidelines are not being met.MethodsOver a period of 2 weeks, 58 Infants presented to the Emergency Department of Sligo University Hospital, Data was collected from triage and ED notes. All infants were included in the study regardless of the presentation. The study checked whether temperature, BM and weight were checked and recorded or not by both Doctors and Nurses.Results58 patients were identified, regarding nursing triage notes, temperature was documented in 86.2%, BM was documented in 82.7%, and weight was the least to be documented with 60%.Doctor’s Documentation had lower percentages than triage notes with temperature and BM being documented in 51% and 43.1% respectively, weight documentation was very low by doctors with only 22.4%. Reasons for not documenting any of the parameters were not clearly identified on the notes.conclusionFrom the results above it’s evident that documentation of these specific parameters has been significantly higher when done by triage nurses.Documentations should be improved by responsible physicians.It’s important to always document temperature and BM as patient triage category can be changed depending on them, weight is important when infant development and follow up is being considered.Presentation and teaching should be done regarding the importance of documentation of these parameters.A repeat audit should be carried out in order to see if changes are being implemented.