Development of automated triage system for emergency medical service

Emergency department is the frontline and critical service of a hospital which provides wide ranges of medical services which includes diagnostic, resuscitation and stabilization components to save life. Triage is a process that assists assistant medical officer to justify condition of patient and arrange appropriate treatment for them. According to The Policy of Emergency Medicine and Trauma Service of Malaysia, all patients who accessing to any treatment in emergency department shall proceed to triage. However, the ongoing crowding of emergency department has led to calls for improvement of triage system to facilitate effectiveness of this process. To overcome this problem, a computerized triage system known as Automated Triage System was developed to perform triage within time limitation for each patient and consistent triage decision. Automated triage system could improve quality of service and reduce costs due to misappropriate of resources. The developed system consists of biomedical modules, graphical user interface (GUI) using Microsoft Visual Studio and triage decision making algorithm. This system acquires vital signs, syndrome and chief complaint from patient. The acquired data will be analyzed using triage decision making algorithm and triage level of a patient will be reported instantly. All information and patient records will be stored in database for future reference. Finally, an automated triage system has been designed and developed to assists assistant medical officer to perform triage assessment in Emergency Room. This system can provide accurate and specific triage output compared to the one done by assistant medical officer. The average time taken to perform the triage assessment using this system is around 6 minutes.