triázs

Triázs is the Hungarian term for triage, the medical process of prioritizing patient care when resources are limited or demand exceeds capacity. Derived from the French word triage, meaning to sort, triage involves evaluating and sorting patients by the severity of their condition and the urgency of treatment, with the goal of maximizing lives saved and minimizing suffering.

Triage is used in prehospital settings, emergency departments, and during mass casualty incidents. It guides decisions about who should receive immediate life-saving care, who can wait, and who is unlikely to benefit from rapid treatment. In many systems, patients are assigned color-coded priorities, such as red for immediate care, yellow for delayed care, green for minor injuries, and black for deceased or unsurvivable cases; some protocols use numeric or other color schemes.

The triage process typically involves a rapid initial assessment of vital signs, mental status, and injury mechanism, followed by ongoing re-evaluation as conditions change and additional resources become available. Tools and protocols, such as the Simple Triage and Rapid Treatment (START) method, help responders classify patients quickly in field conditions, while hospital triage involves more detailed assessment and waiting-room management.

Ethical considerations include balancing individual needs with the greater good, transparency, and fairness, especially under extreme resource strain. The concept originated in battlefield medicine and has since become standard practice in civilian emergency medicine and disaster response.