Triage and Risk Concept: Application Proposal for Pre-Hospital Emergencies in a Psychiatric Ambulance in the City of Buenos Aires

Abstract

The heterogeneity of clinical presentations in psychiatric emergencies creates difficulties in the response by interdisciplinary Mental Health teams. This is aggravated and difficult when the care is carried out on public roads or the patient’s home, that is, it is a pre-hospital context. Our Psychiatric Emergency Hospital, located in the City of Buenos Aires, provides pre-hospital care with a psychiatric ambulance, which is then referred to general hospitals or other health system providers. Not all effectors in the network have the same resources and, at the time of the emergency, the reasons for consultation such as the patient’s clinic are heterogeneous and require the greatest effectiveness in the intervention that is taken. The triage system is a resource that allows the systematization of approaches against the multiplicity of reasons for consultation and presentation of mental pathologies in the emergency room, in addition to providing greater effectiveness in interventions, homogeneity for the health system and consensus among the health effectors. Framed in the Mental Health Law, and especially in the concept of risk, a triage proposal was designed for pre-hospital interventions by the psychiatric ambulance dependent on Hospital Alvear and under current legal regulations with the aim of homogenizing care and referrals with the highest rate of effectiveness to provide quality interdisciplinary medicine.