Purpose: A national referral hospital in Indonesia developed a three-category triage acuity method called the Cipto Triage Method (CTM) for emergency departments (ED) in developing countries. This was a validation study to assess the performance of the triage method.
Methods: This cohort, retrospective, single-centre study was conducted in the ED of Cipto Mangunkusumo Hospital that receives approximately 30,000 patient visits per year. The ED medical records throughout the year 2017 were randomly selected as the study sample. Completely written forms of triage and ED initial assessment were included in this study. Validation of the CTM decision was done by using expert panel opinion as reference standard, and also using surrogate conditions such as patient outcome for hospital admission and in-hospital mortality.
Results: There were 1348 samples assigned to the following three categories: resuscitation (14.9%), urgent (63.8%) and non-urgent (21.3%). Overall accuracy was more than 80%, positive predictive value and negative predictive value for resuscitation category were 99% (95% confidence interval [CI], 96.5-99.9) and 96.9% (95% CI, 95.7-97.8), respectively. Resuscitation category had a relative risk (RR) for admission of 1.341 (95% CI, 1.259-1.429) and a RR for mortality of 4.294 (95% CI, 3.180-5.799). Undertriage increases the risk of mortality compared to correct triage (RR, 3.1; 95% CI, 2.11-4.54).
Conclusion: CTM has a good criterion and construct validity; it is also easy to understand and can accommodate a simple ED design in the majority of hospitals in Indonesia.
Keywords: emergency department; triage; validation.
© 2020 Habib et al.