Triage in the Emergency Department. Practical and Ethical Issues

Triage is a complex and dynamic decisional process composed of sequential actions and necessary evaluations in order to establish the priority of access to medical attention in emergency care. In the Triage not only medical-biological knowledge is important but also the methods that together are inspired by ethical models. Following the historical considerations and after having brought out the methods and practice used in various countries and also having underlined the personal experience of the Emergency Department of the Emergency Department of the University Policlinic of the "Sapienza" University of Rome (Italy), the biggest hospital in Europe, the authors emphasized the nursing care in the "triage" and support the necessity of an adequate training period not only to acquired the technical knowledge required but also the psychological and social interaction as well as moral and practical competence. By "practical" we intend it to be explicitly a dimension in which moral competence has been acquired in using concrete first person action in a virtuous way towards the betterment of the sick person using the best modes of justice. Clin Ter 2009; 160(3):223-232