Abstract
This study aimed to develop and implement an educational simulation program based on the Korean Triage and Acuity Scale (KTAS) for nurses in emergency medical centers who completed the KTAS training, and assess its effects. We examined the educational effects of the program by evaluating clinical decision-making ability, job satisfaction, and customer orientation among the participants, namely 27 nurses in the emergency center of a general hospital. Data were collected from 3 to 24 May 2017, and analyzed using SPSS 22.0. There was a significant difference in nurses’ mean scores on clinical decision-making ability, job satisfaction, and customer orientation before and after the simulation-based education. In other words, after completing the KTAS-based simulation education program, the emergency nurses showed improved clinical decision-making ability, job satisfaction, and customer orientation. Based on the results of this study, it is expected that this educational program can be effectively used for KTAS education, and it was confirmed that simulation-based education is a useful learning method for triage nurses in emergency medical centers.
Highlights
According to National Emergency Medical Center statistics, emergency medical centers in Korea are being consistently used by more than 10 million people per year, with 10.343.983 visits in 2015 because of the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome outbreak, 10.419.983 in 2014, and 10.186.341 in 2013 [1].In addition, the use of emergency medical centers is rising due to an increase in the number of disasters and accidents; higher levels of service at emergency medical centers are being requested because of improvements in individuals’ quality of life due to medical technology developments [2]
Development of the Simulation Education Program Based on Korean Triage and Acuity Scale (KTAS)
To select an educational topic for the educational program, group interviews were conducted with the study participants in the conference room of the emergency medical center using the question, “Which patient is the most difficult to judge when applying the KTAS?” In the interviews with a total of 30 nurses, difficulties were reported regarding the classification of patients with heart disease complaining of gastrointestinal symptoms, classification of high-risk patients, determination of the treatment range for trauma patients, and assessment of pain and discomfort in children
Summary
According to National Emergency Medical Center statistics, emergency medical centers in Korea are being consistently used by more than 10 million people per year, with 10.343.983 visits in 2015 because of the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome outbreak, 10.419.983 in 2014, and 10.186.341 in 2013 [1].In addition, the use of emergency medical centers is rising due to an increase in the number of disasters and accidents; higher levels of service at emergency medical centers are being requested because of improvements in individuals’ quality of life due to medical technology developments [2]. According to National Emergency Medical Center statistics, emergency medical centers in Korea are being consistently used by more than 10 million people per year, with 10.343.983 visits in 2015 because of the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome outbreak, 10.419.983 in 2014, and 10.186.341 in 2013 [1]. The increase in non-emergency patients leads to inefficient management of medical resources; the need for a severity classification system to determine and categorize patients’ severity for efficient management has been in the limelight [5]. Severity classification involves the systematic classification of patients visiting the emergency medical center by assessing the severity of the health problem, making a judgment about the order of prioritization of care, performing emergency treatment, and allocating cases to appropriate departments [6]. Previous research found that the emphasis on severity classification has sometimes led to disability in patients because of inadequate classification
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