A 65-year-old patient arrived at the triage area with complaints of diaphoresis, dizziness, and left-sided chest pain. This patient should be prioritized into which category?
A. Non-urgent
B. Urgent
C. Emergent
D. High urgent
Correct Answer: C. Emergent
Chest pain is considered an emergent priority, which is defined as potentially life-threatening. If the nurse can accurately diagnose the patient with these criteria and mark as a Level 1 trauma patient, the patient will need immediate life-saving therapy. Immediate physician involvement in the care of the patient is critical and is one of the differences between level 1 and level 2 patient designations.
Option A: Non-urgent conditions can wait for hours or even days. If the patient meets a certain group of discriminators, he or she is categorized into an urgency category that ranges from immediate to non-urgent.
Option B: Clients with urgent priority need treatment within 2 hours of triage (e.g. kidney stones). If the patient is not categorized as a level 1, the nurse then decides if the patient should wait or not. This is determined by three questions; is the patient in a high-risk situation, confused, lethargic, or disoriented? Or is the patient in severe pain or distress?
Option D: High urgency is not commonly used; however, in 5-tier triage systems, High urgent patients fall between emergent and urgent in terms of the time elapsing prior to treatment. The urgency categorization is tied to a maximum waiting time, with the immediate maximum waiting time being 0 minutes, very urgent is 10 minutes max. Urgent waiting time is maxed at 60 minutes, standard 120 minutes, and non-urgent waiting time is maxed at 240 minutes.
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