Characterizing the Role of the “Triagist”: Reasons for Triage Discordance and Impact on Disposition

Excerpt

Inpatient general medicine physicians are increasingly called upon to serve in a “triagist” role assessing and managing requests for admission to the acute care medical service.^{1, 2} To our knowledge, no study has catalogued these activities in a comprehensive way, especially with respect to decision-making functions. Thus, our objectives were to (1) characterize the demands on the triagist role by measuring the frequency and origin of admission calls to the acute care medical service, (2) better understand the triage decision-making process by delineating sources of triage decision concordance/discordance, and (3) identify the impact of the triagist with respect to ultimate disposition in the setting of triage discordance. …