PRINCIPLES OF MEDICAL TRIAGE FOR PATIENTS IN UKRAINE AND ABROAD

Abstract

The overloading of emergency services is an urgent public health problem that affects all countries of the world, and despite numerous efforts in this field, significant progress has not yet been achieved. Against the background of the military invasion of muscovites to the territory of Ukraine with constant air attacks on cities with a high population density, the load on the emergency medical service has increased many times, which requires the fastest possible improvement of its structure and work organization. The one of the important factors driving the increase patient admissions to emergency departments is often non-urgent calls or visits, that is, visits by patients with conditions that do not require urgent attention or complex medical interventions and can be safely treated by primary medical aid. The consequences of overloading the emergency medical service negatively affect patients and medical personnel. So, low medical care quality leads to mortality among the patients, the numerous of medical errors and financial costs, and there is "burnout" of medical staff. The key to success is the correct organization of medical triage. Some countries have their own system of medical triage, although it is not different fundamentally. In the triage process, there are three options for evaluating the decision on the urgency category of assistance: expected result, excessive level or undersorting. Resource overspending occurs when the assigned triage category has a higher level of urgency than necessary. This so-called medical re-sorting is a reassessment of the severity of an illness or injury. Despite the progressively increasing load on the emergency medical service in Ukraine against the background of the moscow invasion and the increase in its funding in recent years, only a quantitative indicators of its work have significantly increased without much improvement in the quality of care due to absent of the any changes in the organization of the work of the emergency service which is based on outdated Soviet management principles.