Developing and Application of a Novel Triage Tag

ABSTRACT

PURPOSE: Triage tags help prioritize the treatment for disaster patients based on the severity of the illness and help distribute limited resources during a time of disaster. In this study, we developed a novel triage tag and evaluated its feasibility during a hospital-based disaster drill. METHODS: For the first stage, we developed a new triage tag. The most commonly used triage tags (Medical Emergency Triage-TAG and SMART tag) were analyzed. We reassembled their advantages and invented a novel triage tag (NT tag). The second stage involved an evaluation of the quality of NT tag. The NT tag was used in a hospital-based disaster drill held in a single center with 22 mock patients. After the drill, hospital staffs were asked to complete a questionnaire which included visibility, comprehensibility, and ease of use with respect to the new NT tag. A five-category Likert scale was used to quantify the answer. RESULTS: The NT tag was successfully developed considering 6 quality indexes visibility, expandability, flexibility, solidity, space, and fixity. Forty-two out of ninety (46.7%) subjects answered the questionnaire. Approximately 21% of participants had previous disaster drill experience and 33% had previous education of the SMART triage system. The visibility scale of the severity category was on average 3.3 (standard deviation (SD) 1.0), the comprehensiveness of the severity category was 3.6 (SD0.9), the ease to understand patient information was 2.2-4.2, the ease to follow up symptoms and vital signs was 2.3-4.1. Eighty and percent of participants preferred to use the NT tag in a future disaster situation or disaster drill. CONCLUSION: We successfully developed a novel triage tag. The NT tag showed moderate feasibility.