Triage at the Emergency Department: association between triage levels and patient outcome

OBJECTIVE: Identify association between sociodemographic, clinical and triage categories with protocol outcomes developed at Hospital São Paulo (HSP). METHODS: Retrospective cohort study conducted with patients older than 18 years submitted to the triage protocol in August 2012. Logistic regression was used to associate the risk categories to outcomes (p-value ≤0,05). RESULTS: Men with older age and those treated in clinical specialties had higher rates of hospitalization and death. Patients in the high-priority group had hospitalization and mortality rates five and 10.6 times, respectively (p < 0.0001). CONCLUSION: The high-priority group experienced higher hospitalization and mortality rates. The protocol was able to detect patients with more urgent conditions and to identify risk factors for hospitalization and death.