الفهرس 
INTRODUCTIONOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
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Abstract
Effective triage system should classify patients into groups according to the acuity of their illness aiming to ensure that patients with life threatening illness or injuries receive immediate intervention and greatest resource utilization with taking into consideration that triage isn’t an end point but just a start for continuous timely reassessment to pick up deteriorating patients.
Triage process entails two main systems, either three- or five-level triage systems. Now, five-level triage system is the most widely adopted in the developed countries, especially in large-volume EDs.
Being the only university hospital serving tertiary medical service around the clock to more than 16 million people across four governorates, with daily flow exceeding 300 patients, AMUH administration decided to reallocate ED rooms to adopt implementing five-level triaging system instead of previously used three-level system to overcome the problem of overwhelmed observation rooms with its consequences.
Aiming to assess impact of newly implemented five-level triage system, this comparative observational study (pre/post intervention) was conducted to 22936 patients who attended the ED of AMUH over a six-months period assessed by five-level triaging and compared to 9766 patients who had attended the ED in the preceding three months assessed by three-level triaging system. Primary outcome was to assess impact of five-level triaging on patients’ outcomes including ED mortality, while secondary outcomes were its impact on resources utilization and ED LOS.