The use of a dedicated neurological triage system improves process times and resource utilization: a prospective observational study from an interdisciplinary emergency department

BACKGROUND: Patients with neurological symptoms have been contributing to the increasing rates of emergency department (ED) utilization in recent years. Existing triage systems represent neurological symptoms rather crudely, neglecting subtler but relevant aspects like temporal evolution or associated symptoms. A designated neurological triage system could positively impact patient safety by identifying patients with urgent need for medical attention and prevent inadequate utilization of ED and hospital resources. METHODS: We compared basic demographic information, chief complaint/presenting symptom, door-to-doctor time and length of stay (LOS) as well as utilization of ED resources of patients presenting with neurological symptoms or complaints during a one-month period before as well as after the introduction of the Heidelberg Neurological Triage System (HEINTS) in our interdisciplinary ED. In a second step, we compared diagnostic and treatment processes for both time periods according to assigned acuity. RESULTS: During the two assessment periods, 299 and 300 patients were evaluated by a neurologist, respectively. While demographic features were similar for both groups, overall LOS (p < 0.001) was significantly shorter, while CT (p = 0.023), laboratory examinations (p = 0.006), ECG (p = 0.011) and consultations (p = 0.004) were performed significantly less often when assessing with HEINTS. When considering acuity, an epileptic seizure was less frequently evaluated as acute with HEINTS than in the pre-HEINTS phase (p = 0.002), while vertigo patients were significantly more often rated as acute with HEINTS (p < 0.001). In all cases rated as acute, door-to-doctor-time (DDT) decreased from 41.0 min to 17.7 min (p < 0.001), and treatment duration decreased from 304.3 min to 149.4 min (p < 0.001) after introduction of HEINTS triage. CONCLUSION: A dedicated triage system for patients with neurological complaints reduces DDT, LOS and ED resource utilization, thereby improving ED diagnostic and treatment processes.