title: Can Paramedics Safely Refuse Transport of Non-Urgent Patients?
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  The goal of this search was to review the current literature regarding paramedic triage of primary care patients and the safety of paramedic-initiated non-transport of non-urgent patients.
  
  
  METHODS
  A narrative literature review was conducted using the Medline (Medline Industries, Inc.; Mundelein, Illinois USA) database and a manual search of Google Scholar (Google; Mountain View, California USA).
  
  
  RESULTS
  Only 11 studies were found investigating paramedic triage and safety of non-transport of non-urgent patients. It was found that triage agreement between paramedic and emergency department staff generally is poor and that paramedics are limited in their abilities to predict the ultimate admission location of their patients. However, these triage decisions and admission predictions are much more accurate when the patient's condition is the result of trauma and when the patient requires critical care services. Furthermore, the literature provides very limited support for the safety of paramedic triage in the refusal of non-urgent patient transport, especially without physician oversight. Though many non-transported patients are satisfied with the quality of non-urgent treatment that they receive from paramedics, the rates of under-triage and subsequent hospitalization reported in the literature are too high to suggest that this practice can be adopted widely.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  There is insufficient evidence to suggest that non-urgent patients can safely be refused transport based on paramedic triage alone. Further attempts to implement paramedic-initiated non-transport of non-urgent patients should be approached with careful triage protocol development, paramedic training, and pilot studies. Future primary research and systematic reviews also are required to build on the currently limited literature. Fraess-Phillips AJ . Can paramedics safely refuse transport of non-urgent patients? Prehosp Disaster Med. 2016;31(6):667-674.
authors.affiliation: School of Health Sciences,University of Northern British Columbia,Prince George,British Columbia,Canada.
authors.forename: Alex J
authors.initials: AJ
authors.lastname: Fraess-Phillips
mesh_terms: D003657:Decision Making; D004634:Emergency Medical Technicians; D006801:Humans; D014187:Transportation of Patients
keywords:  ALS Advanced Life Support;  ATS Australasian Triage Scale;  BLS Basic Life Support;  CCB critical care bed;  CTAS Canadian Triage and Acuity Scale;  ED emergency department;  NPV negative predictive value;  PPV positive predictive value;  UK United Kingdom; Emergency Medical Services; allied health professional; transportation of patients; triage