Improving quality of services in maternity care triage system

Abstract

The main objectives in triage are to improve the quality of care and reduce the risks associated to the waiting time in emergency care. Thus, an efficient triage is a good way to avoid some future problems and how much quicker it is, more the patient can benefit. The most common triage system is the Manchester Triage System that is a reliable system focused in the emergency department of a hospital. However, its use is more suitable for more widespread medical emergencies and not for specialized cases, like Gynecological and Obstetrics emergencies. To overcome these limitations, an alternative pre-triage system, integrated into an intelligent decision support system, was developed in order to better characterize the patient and correctly defined her as urgent or not. This system allows the increase of patient's safety, especially women who need immediate care. This paper includes the workflow that describes the decision process in real time in the emergency department, when women are submitted to triage and identify points of evolution.