DISASTER PLANNING: What is hospital reverse triage?

With consideration of multiple strategies, pediatric hospital surge capacity may be considerably more robust than currently appreciated.

In a disaster situation, there is the need to free up space in hospitals to care for newly injured patients.  Reverse triage provides a way to estimate how much capacity might be made available by discharging inpatients earlier than had been planned.  This study, conducted at Johns Hopkins Hospital, studied pediatric patients during the period December 2012 through December 2013 to model the extent of possible reverse triage. The researchers found that using reverse triage as well as all other possible strategies to increase capacity could free up over 50 percent of capacity nearly immediately and 84 percent by the fourth day of a disaster.  Most of the pediatric patients who were considered appropriate for early discharge were in the child and adolescent psychiatric unit.

Source: Kelen, G.D., and others. (2017, February 6). Effect of reverse triage on creation of surge capacity in a pediatric hospital. JAMA Pediatrics. Click here: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Gai_Cole/publication/313361752_Effect_of_Reverse_Triage_on_Creation_of_Surge_Capacity_in_a_Pediatric_Hospital/links/589cce42a6fdcc3e8bea401c/Effect-of-Reverse-Triage-on-Creation-of-Surge-Capacity-in-a-Pediatric-Hospital.pdf