The Emergency Nurses Association (ENA) supports the use of a five-level scale that has been deemed reliable and valid, such as the Emergency Severity Index (ESI), when assigning acuity levels for patients presenting to the emergency department (ED). Nurses who are competent in acuity assignment can help prevent delays and promote good patient outcomes. The clinical practice guideline regarding acuity assignment states ED nurses should receive initial and on-going, evidenced-based triage education (Stone & Wolf, 2017).
Significance
In departments not currently following the clinical practice guideline from the ENA regarding triage competency, there is little feedback given to caregivers regarding wrongful acuity assignment, or mistriage, …show more content…
The proposed training will impact registered nurses performing acuity assignment in triage and benefit patients served by the department.
Cost
The organization holding the training has low fidelity simulation mannequins, a high fidelity simulation mannequin, various staging equipment for the patient scenarios, and a conference room that can be used at no cost to the department or project coordinator. Nurses are allotted education time every year and leadership has stated they are willing to pay the nurses time to attend as ESI education and training is needed for patient safety purposes.
Gaps in the Evidence Available literature supports the use of ESI, initial training and ongoing training of nurses in acuity assignment using their system, the use of simulation for training purposes, and shows no correlation between the number of years since graduation or years of ED nursing experience and accuracy of acuity assignment. However, gaps in the literature include: a universal audit tool to audit patient records for accuracy, accuracy of the acuity assignment in specialty populations such as pediatrics, geriatrics, or minorities, and lack of randomized controlled
Significance
In departments not currently following the clinical practice guideline from the ENA regarding triage competency, there is little feedback given to caregivers regarding wrongful acuity assignment, or mistriage, …show more content…
The proposed training will impact registered nurses performing acuity assignment in triage and benefit patients served by the department.
Cost
The organization holding the training has low fidelity simulation mannequins, a high fidelity simulation mannequin, various staging equipment for the patient scenarios, and a conference room that can be used at no cost to the department or project coordinator. Nurses are allotted education time every year and leadership has stated they are willing to pay the nurses time to attend as ESI education and training is needed for patient safety purposes.
Gaps in the Evidence Available literature supports the use of ESI, initial training and ongoing training of nurses in acuity assignment using their system, the use of simulation for training purposes, and shows no correlation between the number of years since graduation or years of ED nursing experience and accuracy of acuity assignment. However, gaps in the literature include: a universal audit tool to audit patient records for accuracy, accuracy of the acuity assignment in specialty populations such as pediatrics, geriatrics, or minorities, and lack of randomized controlled