The Role of Reverse Triage to Increase the Hospital surge Capacity in Disaster Response

Successful and effective management of large-scale disasters and epidemics requires pre-established systematic plans to minimize the damage and keep control the situation. By increasing the number of people in need of urgent medical care, hospitals must improve their response capacity as being at the forefront of responding to disasters and incidents. One way to develop the hospital capacity in disaster response is reverse triage. The aim of reverse triage is current low-risk patients to be discharged and hospital resources focus on high-risk ones. In this case study the role of reverse triage to increase the capacity of Isfahan Al-Zahra Hospital is studied. First, a list of ten most common cause of hospitalization in each section was prepared. Then, based on Handbooks of Emergency Medicine, the scientific guidelines were written to make decision for this group of patients and the possibility of early discharge as long as no significant risk threatens them in the next 96 hours. Accordingly, the percentage ofpatients who can be discharged, were determined by reverse triage. The results showed that reverse triage can free the hospital beds up to 20% for admission the patients in dire need of help. Therefore it is possible to increase the capacity of hospital beds by providing guidelines, risk stratification and early discharge