NCT03793972

Triaging and Referring in Adjacent General and Emergency Departments

Triaging and Referring in Adjacent General and Emergency Departments (the TRIAGE-trial): a Cluster Randomised Controlled Trial

• Status: Completed
• Phase: N/A
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 8,158 (actual)
• Sponsor: Universiteit Antwerpen · Academic / Other
• Sex: All
• Age: —
• Healthy volunteers: Accepted

Summary

Introduction: Patients who might also go to the general practitioner (GP) frequently consult emergency departments (ED). This leads to additional costs for both government and patient and a high workload for emergency physicians in Flanders. The Belgian government wants to address this problem by improved collaboration between EDs and general practice cooperatives (GPCs). Intervention: Patients presenting at the ED during out-of-hours (OOH) will be triaged and allocated to the most appropriate service. For this purpose the Manchester Triage System (MTS) which is commonly used in Flemish hospitals, will be extended (eMTS). By doing so a trained nurse will be able to diverge suitable patients towards the GPC. Methodology: The investigators will conduct a cluster randomised controlled trial in which eligible ED patients will be diverged to the GPC using the eMTS. The investigators will collect data using the iCAREdata database. The investigators will study the use of the eMTS, the effectiveness and effects of triage, work load changes, epidemiology at both departments, patient safety, health insurance (HIS) and patient expenditures. Furthermore, facilitators and barriers will be studied and an incident analysis of problem cases will be performed. Outcome: The primary outcome is the proportion of patients who enter the ED and are handled by the GP after triage. Secondary outcome measurements are related to safety: referral rate to the ED by the GP, proportion of patients not following the triage advice and file review for selected patients.

Conditions

• Triage

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
OTHER	Triage with referral to primary care	During intervention weekends(and holidays) a nurse will triage patients using a newly developped extended Manchester Triage System (eMTS). Patients appropriate for primary care will be referred to the general practitioner on call.We will inform patients about the nature of the intervention using leaflets and broadcasting in the waiting room of the Emergency Department.
OTHER	Usual care	During a control weekend (and holidays), all data registration and collection will be the same as during intervention weekends but patents will not be informed about their allocation advice. The emergency physician will see all patients deciding to stay at the ED, without influence of the triage advice. As in standard clinical care, patients will have the right to change their mind and go spontaneously to the general practitioner. . During control weekends, we will only inform about triage in general but no about the general practioner or the intervention.

Timeline

• Start date: 2019-01-04
• Primary completion: 2019-12-31
• Completion: 2019-12-31
• First posted: 2019-01-04
• Last updated: 2025-03-11
• Results posted: 2025-03-11

Locations

2 sites across 1 country: Belgium