A Nationwide Survey of Korean Emergency Department Triage Systems and Scales; A First Step Towards Reform of the Emergency Medical Service System

Abstract

Purpose: As a first step towards reform of the emergencymedical service system, we aimed to assess the currentstatus of our emergency department triage systems andillustrated the current status and problems of the Koreanemergency department triage system.Methods: We conducted e-mail and telephone surveys ofthe triage officers of all 136 emergency medical centers inKorea.Results: All 136 emergency departments responded to thesurvey. In Korea, a triage scale derived from the ‘emergencysymptoms based on the requirements of the EmergencyMedical Service Act’ is the most-used triage scale. We identifiedfactors showing significant association with use of verifiedtriage vs. unverified scales, including level of triage scale,type of hospital, type of emergency department, perception ofproblems regarding the triage scale, educational performance,and number of annual visits.Conclusion: Results of our survey showed that in Koreavarious kinds of triage scale are in use and the reliabilityand validity of more than half of them are unverified.Reform of the Korean national triage system is in progressand our survey findings should be helpful in guiding reorganizationof the national triage systems of many countries.