Thailand medical mobile application for patients triage base on criteria based dispatch protocol
Abstract Background Before patients are admitted into the emergency department, it is important to undertake a pre-hospital process, both in terms of treatment performance and a request for resources from an emergency unit. The existing system to triage patients in Thailand is not functioning to its...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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BMC
2020-04-01
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| Series: | BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s12911-020-1075-6 |
| _version_ | 1818255800107270144 |
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| author | Krongkarn Sutham Pattaraporn Khuwuthyakorn Orawit Thinnukool |
| author_facet | Krongkarn Sutham Pattaraporn Khuwuthyakorn Orawit Thinnukool |
| author_sort | Krongkarn Sutham |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Abstract Background Before patients are admitted into the emergency department, it is important to undertake a pre-hospital process, both in terms of treatment performance and a request for resources from an emergency unit. The existing system to triage patients in Thailand is not functioning to its full capacity in either the primary medical system or pre-hospital treatment with shortcomings in the areas of speed, features, and appropriate systems. There is a high possibility of issuing a false Initial Dispatch Code (IDC), which will cause the over or underutilisation of emergency resources, such as rescue teams, community hospitals and emergency medical volunteers. Methods A usability system design, together with a reliability test, was applied to develop an application to optimise the pre-hospital process, specifically to sort patients, using an IDC to improve the request for emergency resources. The triage mobile application was developed on both iOS and Android operating systems to support patient triage based on Criteria Based Dispatch (CBD). The 25 main symptom categories covered by CBD were used to design and develop the application, and 12 emergency medical staff, including doctors and nurses, were asked to test the system in the aspects of triage protocol correction, triage reliability, usability and user satisfaction. Results The results of testing the proposed triage application were compared with the time used to triage by experienced staff and it was found that, in non-trauma cases, it was faster and more effective to use the application for emergency operations and to correct the IDC code representation. Conclusions The triage application will be utilised to support the pre-hospital process and to classify patients’ conditions before they are admitted to the Emergency Department (ED). The application is suitable for users who are not medical emergency staff. Patients with non-trauma symptoms may be a suitable group to use the application in terms of time used to identify IDC for their own symptoms. The use of the application can be beneficial for those who wish to self-identify their symptoms before requesting medical services. |
| first_indexed | 2024-12-12T17:17:37Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-e9a5ae12827740c6bebbe66afd5704fa |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 1472-6947 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-12-12T17:17:37Z |
| publishDate | 2020-04-01 |
| publisher | BMC |
| record_format | Article |
| series | BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making |
| spelling | doaj.art-e9a5ae12827740c6bebbe66afd5704fa2022-12-22T00:17:44ZengBMCBMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making1472-69472020-04-0120111310.1186/s12911-020-1075-6Thailand medical mobile application for patients triage base on criteria based dispatch protocolKrongkarn Sutham0Pattaraporn Khuwuthyakorn1Orawit Thinnukool2Department of Emergency Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Chiang Mai UniversityResearch Group of Embedded Systems and Mobile Application in Health Science, College of Arts, Media and Technology, Chiang Mai UniversityResearch Group of Embedded Systems and Mobile Application in Health Science, College of Arts, Media and Technology, Chiang Mai UniversityAbstract Background Before patients are admitted into the emergency department, it is important to undertake a pre-hospital process, both in terms of treatment performance and a request for resources from an emergency unit. The existing system to triage patients in Thailand is not functioning to its full capacity in either the primary medical system or pre-hospital treatment with shortcomings in the areas of speed, features, and appropriate systems. There is a high possibility of issuing a false Initial Dispatch Code (IDC), which will cause the over or underutilisation of emergency resources, such as rescue teams, community hospitals and emergency medical volunteers. Methods A usability system design, together with a reliability test, was applied to develop an application to optimise the pre-hospital process, specifically to sort patients, using an IDC to improve the request for emergency resources. The triage mobile application was developed on both iOS and Android operating systems to support patient triage based on Criteria Based Dispatch (CBD). The 25 main symptom categories covered by CBD were used to design and develop the application, and 12 emergency medical staff, including doctors and nurses, were asked to test the system in the aspects of triage protocol correction, triage reliability, usability and user satisfaction. Results The results of testing the proposed triage application were compared with the time used to triage by experienced staff and it was found that, in non-trauma cases, it was faster and more effective to use the application for emergency operations and to correct the IDC code representation. Conclusions The triage application will be utilised to support the pre-hospital process and to classify patients’ conditions before they are admitted to the Emergency Department (ED). The application is suitable for users who are not medical emergency staff. Patients with non-trauma symptoms may be a suitable group to use the application in terms of time used to identify IDC for their own symptoms. The use of the application can be beneficial for those who wish to self-identify their symptoms before requesting medical services.http://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s12911-020-1075-6TriageEmergency medical servicePrimary medicalIncident dispatch codeCriteria-based dispatchMobile application development |
| spellingShingle | Krongkarn Sutham Pattaraporn Khuwuthyakorn Orawit Thinnukool Thailand medical mobile application for patients triage base on criteria based dispatch protocol BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making Triage Emergency medical service Primary medical Incident dispatch code Criteria-based dispatch Mobile application development |
| title | Thailand medical mobile application for patients triage base on criteria based dispatch protocol |
| title_full | Thailand medical mobile application for patients triage base on criteria based dispatch protocol |
| title_fullStr | Thailand medical mobile application for patients triage base on criteria based dispatch protocol |
| title_full_unstemmed | Thailand medical mobile application for patients triage base on criteria based dispatch protocol |
| title_short | Thailand medical mobile application for patients triage base on criteria based dispatch protocol |
| title_sort | thailand medical mobile application for patients triage base on criteria based dispatch protocol |
| topic | Triage Emergency medical service Primary medical Incident dispatch code Criteria-based dispatch Mobile application development |
| url | http://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s12911-020-1075-6 |
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