The primary objective of this study was to determine the ability of an Emergency Communication Nurse (ECN) to appropriately identify the Abdominal Pain Chief Complaint Protocol to use to triage patients in low-acuity cases. The secondary objectives were to establish the most frequently used primary triage code (Medical Priority Dispatch System™ (MPDS®) Determinant Codes), triggering the use of the Abdominal Pain Chief Complaint Protocol in the Emergency Communication Nurse System™ (ECNS™), as well as the percentage of these calls resulting in a Recommended Care Level (RCL) of “emergency a

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Abdominal pain is the most common symptom with which patients present to the emergency department (ED), and overall visits to EDs in the U.S. are growing twice as fast as the overall population. Interventions that can safely mitigate such a high usage of ED resources would be a great asset in the delivery of effective and efficient ED care. One such intervention is a secondary triage of patients calling 911 for an ambulance who were subsequently triaged as a non-urgent low-acuity caller. Emergency medical services (EMS) using secondary...

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The Welsh Ambulance Service NHS Trust (WAST) manages more than 500,000 calls every year, with its emergency ambulance staff attending more than 250,000 of these calls. WAST currently uses the Medical Priority Dispatch System to process its 999 emergency calls and is an accredited centre of excellence. WAST employs experienced nurses and paramedics to undertake 999 secondary telephone triages of 1) low acuity patients, 2) patients awaiting an ambulance response, and 3) patients whose condition may be managed effectively by an alternative to an ambulance...

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