Triage in Spanish hospitals

Sánchez Bermejo R, Cortés Fadrique C, Rincón Fraile B, Fernández Centeno E, Peña Cueva S, De las Heras Castro EM

The objective to determine what triage systems are being used in Spanish national health

service hospitals and to define the characteristics of the models in place. Cross-sectional

descriptive survey of hospitals with more than 100 beds in the Spanish national health

service. Responses to a questionnaire sent to 123 hospitals were received from 54.5% of

the facilities. The Andorran Triage Model adapted for use as the Spanish Triage System

(ATM-STS) was used in 37.3% of the hospitals. The Manchester Triage System was used in

23.9%. Of the 58 hospitals that use some triage system, 53.4% had not carried out a study

before starting to apply the selected system. The professionals in charge of triage are

nurses in 77.6% of the hospitals and physicians in 6.9%. No triage committee or group

had been established in 53.7% of the hospitals responding to the survey. The degree of

satisfaction with the chosen system expressed on a scale of 1 to 5 was 3.16 for physicians,

3.28 for residents in training, and 3.23 for nurses. Another system would be chosen by

49.2% of the respondents. The difference in the numbers of hospitals using the ATM-STS

and the MTS was not great.

Cortés Fadrique C, De las Heras Castro EM, Fernández Centeno E, Peña Cueva S, Rincón Fraile B, Sánchez Bermejo R