TRIAGE NURSE-ORDERED TESTING IN THE EMERGENCY DEPARTMENT SETTING: A REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE FOR THE CLINICIAN

Background: In an effort to decrease length of stay (LOS) and reduce overcrowding, many emergency departments (ED) have implemented triage nurse-ordered testing. Study Objectives: To review the medical literature to determine the utility of triage nurse-ordered testing and to offer evidence-based recommendations to emergency physicians. Methods: A systematic search of the PubMed literature was performed for publication in English from inception to November 30, 2019 using a combination of the following keywords: "triage,'' "nurse,'' "protocol,'' and "emergency.'' The articles were screened for relevance and the selected studies were subjected to detailed review by all of the authors and assigned a grade of evidence based on focus, research design, and methodology. Recommendations were drawn from the findings. Results: The initial search yielded a total of 982 potentially relevant studies; 13 articles were ultimately selected for inclusion. Of these, 10 studies assessed ED LOS, with one study assessing time to diagnosis. The three remaining studies compared triage nurse-ordered testing with physician testing in the ED setting. Conclusions: Triage nurses have reasonably similar accuracy as physicians in ordering limb x-ray studies and moderate accuracy for laboratory testing. However, we did not identify a clinically meaningful decrease in ED LOS from the use of nursing triage orders. Published by Elsevier Inc.