Heartland Hospital
ER TRIAGE GUIDELINES
Heartland Hospital strives to provide the best care it can with limited resources. To ensure that each patient is seen at the appropriate time and receives quality services, please follow these guidelines for the triage process.
Trauma patients who arrive with obviously critical and life-threatening injuries receive the highest priority. They should be taken to an available trauma room immediately. Any necessary staff and equipment should be devoted to them until their vital signs are stabilized.
All other patients should report to the triage station to undergo an assessment by a nurse. The nurse will utilize the Emergency Severity Index to determine the severity of a patient’s injuries and when they should be seen. This is a common-sense system that ranks patients according to the danger level of their situation. For example, an open wound will rank higher on the Index than a minor illness such as a low fever. The nurse will assign an ESI level between 1 and 5, with 1 being the most serious, to each patient. In this way, patients will be seen according to the acuity of their injuries.
