The nurse's role in Emergency Triage Systems: literature analysis

Abstract

Emergencies are both nationally and internationally accountable for patient overloads that result in an overcrowding of the sector. In emergency service settings, triage scales are used to organize the processes of patient care. This article discusses the work of nurses in Emergency Triage Systems in a contextual and reflexive way. For this purpose, literature analysis on structured triage scales and work organization was developed. The nurse is a professional who meets the conditions necessary for the performance of scales triage, which include language oriented clinical signs and symptoms and empathic relationship to the fundamental aim of the triage process. In the logic of health work, care is understood as a product of the encounter between users seeking emergency care and nurses providing that care. In this perspective, it is considered that nurses, through the interaction with patients, produce the care resulting from the dispute and the pact established in the moment of triage, aiming at meeting the patients’ demands and thus making their inclusion in the emergency system possible.