Australian Triage Scale (ATS) - Tool for Patient Assessment

The Australian Triage Scale (ATS) is a clinical tool used to determine the maximum waiting time for medical assessments and treatment of a patient. It was developed to provide priorities to patients admitted in emergency departments. The ATS has 5 categories based on the severity of the patient's condition. Category 1 is the most severe and requires immediate healthcare service. This presentation includes a case study to understand how ATS works.

Australian Triage Scale
(ATS)
Tool for patient assessment

What is ATS?
 The Australian Triage Scale or the ATS is a clinical tool which is being used to
determine the maximum waiting time that has been implemented for medical
assessments and treatment process of a patient.
 This system was developed back in 1980’s and was developed due to the chaos
developed while an emergency case arrived at hospitals (Australian College for
Emergency Medicine, 2018).
 the ATS system was not developed to move people away of the healthcare facility or
determine the importance of emergency ward in patient condition
 The prime aim of this system is to provide the patients admitted in the emergency
departments with priorities regarding their medical condition (Ebrahimi et al., 2015)

How patients are categorized?
Depending upon the Australasian Triage Scale, there are 5 categories of it the details of
which has been presented in the table below (Hodge et al., 2013).
Australasian Triage Scale
Category
Treatment Acuity Performance indicator threshold
ATS 1 Immediate 100%
ATS 2 10 minutes 80%
ATS 3 30 minutes 75%
ATS 4 60 minutes 70%
ATS 5 120 minutes 70%

What is Matt’s category
 the ATS condition 1 is the immediate and life threatening condition in which immediate
healthcare facility should be provided to the patient (Chamberlain et al., 2015)
 While driving the quad bike he met an accident and due to which he developed severe
leg and head injuries. The right leg x-ray determines that he has a fracture in his right
proximal trivia and fibula
 Further, according to the case study the neurological assessment, he achieves the
score of 15 that determines he will require immediate healthcare service to improve
his physical condition
 Hence according to these results, Matt also falls under the category 1 in the ATS scale.

References
Australian College for Emergency Medicine. (2018). ACEM - Triage. Acem.org.au.
Retrieved 9 April 2018, from https://acem.org.au/Content-Sources/Advancing-
Emergency-Medicine/Better-Outcomes-for-Patients/Triage.aspx
Chamberlain, D. J., Willis, E., Clark, R., & Brideson, G. (2015). Identification of the severe
sepsis patient at triage: a prospective analysis of the Australasian Triage Scale. Emerg
Med J, 32(9), 690-697.
Ebrahimi, M., Heydari, A., Mazlom, R., & Mirhaghi, A. (2015). The reliability of the
Australasian Triage Scale: a meta-analysis. World journal of emergency
medicine, 6(2), 94.
Hodge, A., Hugman, A., Varndell, W., & Howes, K. (2013). A review of the quality
assurance processes for the Australasian Triage Scale (ATS) and implications for
future practice. Australasian Emergency Nursing Journal, 16(1), 21-29.