Comparative study of physiological and anatomical triage in major incidents using a new simulation model

To develop and evaluate a simulation model making it possible to evaluate the accuracy and efficiency of different triage methods; to compare the results of physiological and anatomical triage performed by medical staff with different levels of skills with the use of this model.

A simulation model was created based on patient cards giving sufficient physiological data as a base for physiological triage and anatomical data as description of findings at exposure, providing a base for anatomical triage. Three groups with different skills in disaster medicine, nurse students (n = 23), ambulance nurses (n = 20), and surgeons (n = 30), performed triage based on the patient cards. The outcome was given as potential avoidable mortality. The results of the triage for the two methods were compared to the result of the same triage performed by an expert group.

Differences in triage: Within the groups, the difference between the two triage methods was only significant for the surgeons (p < 0.001), who had a better result using the anatomical triage. For the "physiological triage," there were no significant differences between the three groups. Regarding the results for the "anatomical triage," there were significant differences between both the nurse students and the surgeons (p < 0.001) and the ambulance nurses and the surgeons (p < 0.05). Results in distribution of patients and potential avoidable mortality: Within the groups, the difference between the two methods was significant for all the groups (nurse students, p < 0.01; ambulance nurses, p < 0.01; and surgeons, p < 0.001). They all had a better outcome with anatomical triage (nurse students, 6.1 percent; ambulance nurses, 6.1 percent; and surgeons 19.5 percent less mortality than physiological triage). The group that made the best outcome from physiological triage was the ambulance nurses who had a significantly better result than both nurse students (p < 0.01) and surgeons (p < 0.001). The mean mortality rate for ambulance nurses was 31.1 percent, nurse students, 37 percent, and surgeons was 38.1 percent. Regarding the anatomical triage, there was a significant difference (p < 0.001) between the groups of nurse students (30.9 percent mortality) and surgeons (18.9 percent mortality). The differences between the rest of the groups were also significant (p < 0.05).

The model developed for this study made it possible to compare different methods of triage and also triage performed by staff of different levels of training and experience. Anatomical triage for all test groups in this study gave significantly better results than physiological triage regarding calculated outcome and this difference increased with increasing experience.