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Related Experiment Videos

NTS versus waiting time: an indicator without definition.

D M Fatovich1, I G Jacobs

  • 1Department of Emergency Medicine, Royal Perth Hospital, Western Australia, Australia. daniel.fatovich@health.wa.gov.au

Emergency Medicine (Fremantle, W.A.)
|July 31, 2001
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

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Emergency department waiting time measurement is inconsistent across Australia. The Australasian College for Emergency Medicine needs to define how the National Triage Scale (NTS) is applied to ensure reliable performance indicator data.

Area of Science:

  • Emergency Medicine
  • Healthcare Performance Measurement

Background:

  • The National Triage Scale (NTS) is a key performance indicator in Australasian emergency departments.
  • The starting point for measuring waiting time using the NTS is not consistently defined.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate how the NTS waiting time indicator is measured in Australian emergency departments.
  • To identify variations in NTS application and data collection.

Main Methods:

  • A postal survey was distributed to directors of emergency medicine across 147 Australian emergency departments.
  • Response rate was 71.4% (105 departments).

Main Results:

  • Significant variability exists in when the waiting time clock starts: patient arrival (49.5%), triage start (31.4%), or triage end (10.5%).

Related Experiment Videos

  • Many departments (70.5%) modify NTS scores after initial assignment, and about half use standardized codes for presentations.
  • Inconsistent practices include automatic NTS upgrades for children and varying age definitions for pediatric patients.

    • Conclusions:

    • Inconsistent measurement of the NTS waiting time indicator hinders reliable data comparison between Australian emergency departments.
    • Standardized operational definitions for NTS use are required from the Australasian College for Emergency Medicine to enable meaningful comparative analysis.