Triage Fundamentals #5: Pediatric & Geriatric Special Considerations

Course overview

The sorting process for patients seeking emergency care services has taken a front row seat in the arena of managing risk for both the ED and Urgent Care settings. The process of triage directly impacts patient outcomes, patient/family perceptions of quality care, the internal patient flow of the department, and staff satisfaction. Lack of a foundational knowledge of triage is an underlying element that pushes the risk level even higher. Special Considerations at Triage, the fifth course in the Triage Fundamentals series, reviews the wide span of age demographics among patients and covers a variety of trauma etiologies. In this activity four areas of special considerations will be addressed: pediatric patients, geriatric patients, and kinematics of injury. Understanding the special considerations related to the pediatric and geriatric patient populations, as well as the kinematics of injury will help the emergency department nurse make informed sorting decisions at triage. After completing this activity, practitioners should be able to: analyze the physical and mental/emotional differences in pediatric patients that impact the triage assessment; integrate the physical and psychosocial changes occurring in older adults with their triage assessments; and critique the differences in assessing the various kinematic injuries occurring in patients presenting in triage in the emergency department