Triageregels

Triageregels, or triage rules, are systematic criteria used to determine the order in which patients receive medical assessment and treatment when demand for care exceeds available resources. They aim to prioritize those most likely to benefit from urgent intervention while ensuring rapid evaluation of those in life-threatening conditions.

Triage is applied in a range of settings, including emergency medical services, hospitals during mass casualty incidents, disaster response, and battlefield medicine. It is also used in situations where resources are scarce, such as limited bed capacity or during large-scale events requiring rapid decision-making about who should be treated first.

Common principles of triage include assessing the severity of illness or injury, the urgency of intervention, the patient’s reversibility or likelihood of benefit, and the overall impact on available resources. Categories are often used to classify patients from most urgent to least urgent, sometimes with color coding or numeric scales. Numerous systems exist; examples used in mass casualty scenarios include START (Simple Triage and Rapid Treatment) and SALT (Sort, Assess, Lifesaving Interventions, Treatment/Transport), while hospitals may use locally adapted guidelines that align with national standards.

Implementation relies on trained responders and clear protocols, with regular re-evaluation as conditions and resources change. Ethical considerations emphasize fairness, transparency, and prioritizing those with the highest probability of benefit, within the constraints of the situation.

Limitations include variability in training, contextual constraints, and evolving patient conditions, which can affect triage accuracy. Ongoing training and continuous reassessment are essential to improve outcomes in practice.