Simulating a Multi-Level Priority Triage System for Maternity Emergency

摘要

Nowadays Decision Support Systems are increasingly used in order to help health professionals. An example of this application is the implementation of a triage system in hospital emergency. In Centro Materno Infantil do Norte it was implemented an intelligent pre-triage system aiming to prioritize the patients on two levels: Urgent and or outpatient service. However, although specific for obstetrics and gynaecology cases, the system does not meet all clinical requirements. Thus using a simulation algorithm developed within this framework, it was intended to simulate a specific priority triage system for gynaecology and obstetrics but with five acuity levels as suggested by the Portuguese general department of Health (Direcao Geral de Saude). For this study the repository of specific pre-triage system was used to test the algorithm. After application it was found that the implementation of this system will reduce waiting time, allowing a uniform distribution according to the waiting time and the clinical features. The percentage of deviation between the waiting time and the actual time obtained by simulation algorithm it is approximately 121.6%.