Department of Health PO Box 2060, Cape Town, 8000 For more information contact: Michele Twomey (SATS Implementation Advisor) Mobile: +27 850 3281 email: [email protected] Departmental Website: www.health.gov.za Provincial Website: www.westerncape.gov.za The South African Triage Scale (SATS) Training manual 2012 Table of Contents TABLE OF CONTENTS Table of Contents I Acknowledgements II 1. Introduction 1 1.1 The benefits of implementing SATS 1 1.2 Triage requirements 2 1.3 Who should be the triage provider? 2 1.4 Terminology and key concepts 3 Assessment Questions 5 2. The SATS process flowchart 6 2.1 The five step approach 6 2.2 The SATS process flowchart 6 2.3 SATS priority levels 6 2.4 Terminology and key concepts 7 Assessment Questions 7 Adult SATS Chart 8 Paediatric SATS Chart 10 3. Adult Clinical Signs 12 3.1 Emergency signs 12 3.2 Very urgent signs 12 3.3 Urgent signs 13 Assessment Questions 13 4. Paediatric Clinical Signs 14 4.1 Emergency signs: the abc-c-c-do approach 14 4.1.1 Ab airway and breathing are usually assessed together 14 4.1.2 C circulation assessment 16 4.1.3 C-c coma and convulsions assessment 16 4.1.4 D severe dehydration assessment 17 4.1.5 O other emergency signs 18 4.2 Very urgent signs 18 4.3 Urgent signs 21 Assessment Questions 24 5. Triage Early Warning Score TEWS 25 5.1 Observations at triage 26 5.2 Terminology and key concepts 26 Assessment Questions 27 6. Additional Investigations 28 Assessment Questions 29 7. Additional Tasks 30 Assessment Questions 32 8. Triage in Context 33 8.1 Pre-Hospital 33 8.2 Patient streaming 33 8.3 Infrastructure 33 8.4 Alignment of staff to temporal flow of patients 33 9. Summary 34 10. References 34 SATS TRAINING MANUAL 2012 I Acknowledgements Introduction ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 1 INTRODUCTION On behalf of the Paediatric Triage The South African Triage Group (SATG) would like to Working Group Learning Objectives: and the thank the Paediatric Triage Working Group (PTWG) of South African Triage • Understand the purpose of triage and the benefi ts of implementing the SATS the Western Cape Government (WCG) of South Africa Group • Be familiar with the requirements for standardised triage implementation (SA) (under the auspices of the Paediatric Provincial • Understand the terminology and key concepts around triage Paediatric Triage Co-ordinating Committee & the Emergency Medicine Working Group Provincial Co-ordinating Committee) for their efforts and A nine-month old baby boy is carried into the children’s section of the outpatient department in his Anthony Westwood mother’s arms. He appears to be asleep. At the triage desk he is seen by a nurse and found to have hard work in developing paediatric triage based on two Baljit Cheema lips and tongue that are grey/blue in colour, and he is taken straight into the resuscitation room as an existing triage tools: the Emergency Triage Assessment Heloise Buys emergency. and Treatment (ETAT) of the World Health Organization Jean Augustyn In the resuscitation room he is given oxygen at 15 litres/minute by face mask with a non-rebreather (WHO) and the South African Triage Scale (SATS). Heather Tuffi n reservoir bag. He is noted to be grunting and breathing very fast. His hands are cold to touch and the Michael Lee capillary refi ll time is prolonged to four seconds. An intravenous cannula is placed. A blood sample is The SATG and PTWG wishes to acknowledge the WHO Andrew Argent taken at the same time for blood glucose, full blood count and blood culture. An intravenous infusion of normal saline is commenced at 20ml/kg to run as fast as it can go. Department of Child and Adolescent Health and Shaheem de Vries Lee Wallis Other treatments are given, depending on the result of the investigations and the response to Development and Professor Elizabeth Molyneux, who the treatment he receives. It is now 18 minutes since the baby came through the outpatient Zanele Nxumalo developed the ETAT training course on which these department’s door, and his situation is stable. It is now time to take a full history and carry out a full Louise Cooke course materials are based. We are also grateful to the examination to make a defi nitive diagnosis. He is diagnosed as having very severe pneumonia, and Peter Lesch receives specifi c treatment for this. However, before coming to this diagnosis, no time was wasted, his ETAT-South Africa (ETAT-SA) working group for all their Majedah Ismail status was stabilized, based on a few leading signs and symptoms, even when the medical staff did efforts and hard work in adapting and developing Liesl Strauss not know exactly what was wrong with him. the generic ETAT materials in to the ETAT-SA materials Angela de Sá This was good triage and emergency management. Would it have happened like this in your Jaco Slabbert hospital? In this training course, you are going to acquire the necessary knowledge for the correct specifi cally for the South African setting. triage of sick children and adults. Wendy Rosenthal All reasonable precautions have been taken by the Michèle Twomey Many deaths in hospital occur within 24 hours of admission. Some of these deaths can be prevented if very sick patients (especially children) are quickly identifi ed on their arrival and treatment is started PTWG, the ETAT-SA working group, WHO and SATS group ETAT-SA without delay. In many hospitals around the world, children are not checked before a senior health to verify the information contained in this publication. Working Group worker examines them; as a result, some seriously ill patients have to wait a very long time before they However, the published material is being distributed are seen and treated. Children are known to have died of a treatable condition when waiting in the Lesley Bamford queue for their turn. The idea of triage is to prevent this from happening. without warranty of any kind, either express or implied. Gerry Boon The purpose of triage is to prioritise patients based on medical urgency in contexts where there is a The responsibility for the interpretation and use of the Heloise Buys mismatch between demand and capacity (i.e. patient load overwhelms the available resources). material lies with the reader. In no event shall the PTWG, Baljit Cheema Sue Harris the ETAT-SA working group, WHO or the SATG be liable 1.1 The benefi ts of implementing SATS Mark Patrick 1. expedite the delivery of time-critical treatment for patients with life-threatening conditions. for damages arising from its use. Cindy Stephen 2. ensure that all patients are appropriately prioritised according to their medical urgency. Chris Sutton Dr Baljit Cheema and Dr Michèle Twomey 3. improve patient fl ow. 4. improve patient satisfaction. 5. decrease the patient’s overall length of stay. 6. facilitate streaming of less urgent patients. 7. provide a user-friendly tool for all levels of health care professionals. By introducing the SATS at a public urban hospital in Cape Town, mean waiting times were reduced signifi cantly for all priority levels except the non-urgent green category. The most dramatic reduction in waiting times was seen in patients coded as red (82%).1 II SATS TRAINING MANUAL 2012 SATS TRAINING MANUAL 2012 1 Introduction Introduction 1.2 Triage requirements 1.4 Terminology and key concepts Triage is simple to do, but in order to standardise the process and comprehensively implement the 1. Triage, from the French word “trier”, literally means: “to sort”. The aim is to bring “the greatest SATS as a validated tool certain requirements need to be met. Table 1 shows the equipment needed good to the greatest number of people” – this is achieved through prioritising limited resources for the process and Appendix A on page 4 includes a detailed checklist of requirements. to achieve the greatest possible benefit. Patients are sorted with a scientific triage scale in order of urgency - the end result is that the patient with the greatest need is helped first. Location Equipment Additional equipment 2. Patient to triage: for the hospital or clinic context this refers to a patient that appears relatively stable and is able to mobilise him/herself to the designated triage area. This will be the type of Privacy: Screen, partition or Gloves, face masks & other Pulse oximeter with paediatric triage used for most hospital and clinic cases. separate room. barrier protective devices probes 3. Triage to patient: here the patient is usually unstable. The patient is unable to mobilise him/ herself to the designated triage area and will need to be triaged where they are found. They Safety: Security/protected Wall clock ECG may need to be referred directly to the resuscitation (resus) area if they are at a health facility. Size of area: pushchairs, Low reading electronic/ Finger prick machine, Triage may also be performed at the bedside and documented in retrospect. This type of wheelchairs, stretchers mercury thermometer haemoglobin and triage will be used less often in the hospital context and predominantly in the pre-hospital glucometer measurement context. 4. Physiology (i.e. vital signs): refers to the normal functioning of the different body systems. Accessibility Vital signs monitor OR bauma- Urine collection containers, Some of the physiology can be readily measured (e.g. pulse, blood pressure, respiratory rate, nometer with paediatric cuffs urine dipsticks & urine temperature). pregnancy tests 5. TEWS: Triage Early Warning Score. This is a composite score of the patient’s physiology. The Baby-changing facilities Dry dressings/ bandages score is derived by assigning a number between 0 and 2 for each of the patient’s vital signs.