title: Inpatient mortality as related to triage category in three New South Wales regional base hospitals.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To establish the incidence of death after admission via the ED for each of the five categories of the Australasian Triage Scale in three New South Wales base hospitals, and to compare this with published data from an adult tertiary referral hospital in Victoria. To examine the causes of death in each category.
  
  
  METHODS
  Information was collected from databases established as part of quality assurance projects at three New South Wales rural base hospitals from 1 January 2000 to 31 December 2000.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Overall mortality rates per ED presentation and per ED admission were significantly lower than for similar data from an adult tertiary referral hospital. There were significant differences in mortality per ED presentation for categories 2, 3 and 4 and significant differences in mortality per admission for Australasian Triage Scale categories 2 and 3. The commonest causes of death were acute cardiac/respiratory and malignancy related conditions. Triage category 3 had both the highest number of total admissions and the highest number of deaths post admission. This finding differs from published data from an adult tertiary referral hospital where category 4 represented the largest number of admissions and of in-hospital deaths following admission.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  This study has established the mortality rates per ED presentation and admission for each of the five categories of the Australasian Triage Scale in three New South Wales rural base hospitals. Significant differences were found between these rates and the published rates for an adult tertiary referral hospital.
authors: Tamworth Base Hospital, University Department of Rural Health Tamworth, University of Newcastle, Australia. sdoherty@doh.health.nsw.gov.au
authors: Steven R
authors: SR
authors: Doherty
authors: Craig T
authors: CT
authors: Hore
authors: Shane W
authors: SW
authors: Curran
mesh_terms: D001315:Australia; D004636:Emergency Service, Hospital; D017052:Hospital Mortality; D006780:Hospitals, Rural; D006786:Hospitals, Urban; D006801:Humans; D010343:Patient Admission; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D014218:Triage / Q000145:classification