title: One-two-triage: validation and reliability of a novel triage system for low-resource settings.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To validate and assess reliability of a novel triage system, one-two-triage (OTT), that can be applied by inexperienced providers in low-resource settings.
  
  
  METHODS
  This study was a two-phase prospective, comparative study conducted at three hospitals. Phase I assessed criterion validity of OTT on all patients arriving at an American university hospital by comparing agreement among three methods of triage: OTT, Emergency Severity Index (ESI) and physician-defined acuity (the gold standard). Agreement was reported in normalised and raw-weighted Cohen κ using two different scales for weighting, Expert-weighted and triage-weighted κ. Phase II tested reliability, reported in Fleiss κ, of OTT using standardised cases among three groups of providers at an urban and rural Cambodian hospital and the American university hospital.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Normalised for prevalence of patients in each category, OTT and ESI performed similarly well for expert-weighted κ (OTT κ=0.58, 95% CI 0.52 to 0.65; ESI κ=0.47, 95% CI 0.40 to 0.53) and triage-weighted κ (κ=0.54, 95% CI 0.48 to 0.61; ESI κ=0.57, 95% CI 0.51 to 0.64). Without normalising, agreement with gold standard was less for both systems but performance of OTT and ESI remained similar, expert-weighted (OTT κ=0.57, 95% CI 0.52 to 0.62; ESI κ=0.6, 95% CI 0.58 to 0.66) and triage-weighted (OTT κ=0.31, 95% CI 0.25 to 0.38; ESI κ=0.41, 95% CI 0.35 to 0.4). In the reliability phase, all triagers showed fair inter-rater agreement, Fleiss κ (κ=0.308).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  OTT can be reliably applied and performs as well as ESI compared with gold standard, but requires fewer resources and less experience.
authors.affiliation: Division of Emergency Medicine, Stanford University, Stanford, California, USA.
authors.forename: Ayesha
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Khan
authors.affiliation: Division of Emergency Medicine, Stanford University, Stanford, California, USA.
authors.forename: S V
authors.initials: SV
authors.lastname: Mahadevan
authors.affiliation: Department of Emergency Medicine, Highland General Hospital, Oakland, California, USA.
authors.forename: Andrea
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Dreyfuss
authors.affiliation: Division of Emergency Medicine, Stanford University, Stanford, California, USA.
authors.forename: James
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Quinn
authors.affiliation: University Research Co. Centre for Human Services, Phnom Penh, Cambodia.
authors.forename: Joan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Woods
authors.affiliation: University Research Co. Centre for Human Services, Phnom Penh, Cambodia.
authors.forename: Koy
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Somontha
authors.affiliation: Division of Emergency Medicine, Stanford University, Stanford, California, USA.
authors.forename: Matthew
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Strehlow
mesh_terms: D002140:California; D002160:Cambodia; D004636:Emergency Service, Hospital / Q000458:organization & administration*; D005260:Female; D006767:Hospitals, District; D006779:Hospitals, Public; D006785:Hospitals, University; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011446:Prospective Studies; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012720:Severity of Illness Index; D014218:Triage / Q000379:methods*
keywords: emergency care systems, efficiency; global health; triage