Triaging self-referred patients attending ophthalmic emergency room

OBJECTIVES: To introduce an effective and safe ophthalmic triaging system to be used by non-ophthalmologists. METHODS: A modified scoring triage system with more relevant clinical symptoms and signs from a previously published Rome Eye Scoring System for Urgency and Emergency (RESCUE) was evaluated over a 2-month period. The study was conducted following a prospective cohort design between March and September 2014 at King Abdulaziz University Hospital, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Only self-referred patients were included. Its reliability in differentiating urgent and semi-urgent conditions from non-urgent conditions, identifying patients who need immediate intervention, and decreasing the waiting time were tested using Mann Whitney U test. RESULTS: A total of 531 patients were included in the validation phase to evaluate the triaging system reliability, and 824 patients were included in the implementation phase (applying the system in the ophthalmology emergency room). The sensitivity to differentiate urgent and semi-urgent conditions from non-urgent conditions improved from 90.7 to 98.7%, while the specificity decreased from 97.2 to 87% compared with RESCUE. The sensitivity in differentiating urgent conditions from semi-urgent and non-urgent conditions was 99%, and the specificity was 90%. Mean waiting time reduced from 58.23 minutes to 46 minutes (p=0.014), and the median waiting time reduced from 46 minutes to 33 minutes (p=0.009). CONCLUSION: This triage system appears to be safe and effective in recognizing the urgency of different ophthalmic conditions, reducing unnecessary ophthalmic emergency load and waiting time significantly.