Monday, March 30, 2015

Triage

Emergency nurses, we invite you to voice your opinion on the following statement: In South Africa we are currently mandated to triage patients in emergency departments using SATS (South African Triage Scale), a set of protocols which incorporates relevant vital signs and acuity discriminators to expedite the delivery of time critical treatment for patients with life-threatening conditions (The South African Triage Scale Training Manual 2012). Controversy exists on who should be triaging patients prior to entering the emergency departments. We all agree that nurses are predominantly responsible for triage. Based on ‘The South African Triage Scale Training Manual’ (2012:2) it is reported that adequately trained enrolled nursing assistants (ENAs) has been shown to be as adequate as international standard requirements of internal standards of nursing triage. Reference Republic of South Africa: Western Cape Government Health. 2012. The South African Triage Scale Training Manual. Access: 30 March 2015. Available from: http://emssa.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/SATS-Manual-A5-LR-spreads.pdf
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1 comment:

  1. Jenna SmithMarch 31, 2015 at 10:09 PM

    I do not agree with ENAs performing triage. I feel only Registered Nurses should be allowed to perform this duty. Anyone can be taught to calculate a TEWS and allocate a discriminator, but I feel ENAs and ENs lack the theoretical knowledge/training to adequately identify subtle signs and symptoms of potential emergencies and seldom consult a senior health care professional for a second opinion. I have been witness to numerous inappropriate triage allocations by ENAs and ENs because they either did not understand a discriminator (eg. neurological fallout), did not identify certain signs and symptoms as emergencies and/or did not take a proper history or ask appropriate questions. I feel it is beyond their scope of practice to expect them to "diagnose" potentially life threatening conditions when their training is so basic and I have seen it have a negative affect patient care.

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