[Emergency Triage. An Overview]

In emergency departments, patients present with different severities of diseases and traumatic injuries. However, patients with severe and life-threatening conditions compete for the same resources such as personal and structure. As a general rule, each patient should receive immediate diagnostic and treatment, independent of his or her severity of disease or traumatic injury. However, an unexpected number of patients presenting to the emergency department at the same time may exceed available resources. Thus, waiting times will occur and management of patients may be impeded. As a consequence, patients with diseases or traumatic injuries with a need for time-critical management, have to be detected at the time of presentation. After categorization, patients have to be prioritized and guided to the correct place of treatment ("triage"). Starting in Australia and the United States, nurse-driven triage systems have been introduced in the emergency departments. Aim of triage is to correctly identify at increased risk of death and guide them to rapid and correct treatment. In Germany, two five-level triage systems have been introduced: Manchester Triage System (MTS) and Emergency Severity Index (ESI). We give an overview of these risk assessment tools and discuss pros and cons. In addition, new options such as "team triage" and a combination with "Early Warning Scores" are reported. In summary, nurse-driven triage is an instrument to improve patient safety in emergency medicine. A structured and systematic triage of patients using validated triage assessment tools are recommended from national and international societies of emergency medicine. Therefore, nurse-driven triage is also a must in Germany.