Triaging and Referring In Adjacent General and Emergency Departments (the TRIAGE trial): a cluster randomised controlled trial

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Abstract Objectives To determine the effectiveness and safety of a tool diverting low urgency patients eligible for primary care from an emergency department (ED) to the adjacent general practitioner cooperative (GPC). Methods Unblinded, randomised controlled trial with weekends serving as clusters (three intervention clusters for each control). The intervention was nurse-led triage using a new tool assigning patients to either ED or GPC. During intervention weekends, patients were encouraged to follow this assignment while it was not communicated to the patients during control weekends (they remained at the ED). The primary outcome was the proportion of patients assigned to and handled by the GPC during intervention weekends. The trial was randomised for the secondary outcome: the proportion of patients assigned to the GPC during intervention and control weekends. Additional outcomes were association of these outcomes with possible confounders (study tool parameters, nurse, and patient characteristics), proportion of patients referred back to the ED by the GPC, hospitalisations, and performance of the study tool to detect primary care eligible patients (with the opinion of the treating physician as the gold standard). Results In the intervention group, 838/6374 patients (13.3%, 95% CI 12.5 to 14.2) were assigned to the GPC (secondary outcome), in the control group 431/1744 (24.7%, 95% CI 22.7 to 26.8). In the intervention group, 599/6374 patients (9.5%, 95% CI 8.8 to 10.3) experienced the primary outcome which was influenced by the chosen MTS presentational flowchart, patient’s age, and the nurse. 24/599 patients (4.0%, 95% CI 2.7 to 5.9) patients were referred back to the ED of which three were hospitalised. Positive and negative predictive values of the studied tool during intervention weekends were 0.96 (95%CI 0.94 to 0.97) and 0.60 (95% CI 0.58 to 0.62). Out of the patients assigned to the GPC, 2.4% (95% CI 1.7 to 3.4) were hospitalised. Conclusions ED nurses using a new tool safely diverted 9.5% of the included patients to primary care. ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier NCT03793972 Funding Research Foundation – Flanders (FWO)

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