The effect of performance-based exercise on reducing START miss triage rate in pre-hospital emergency: a protocol study

Introduction: The Emergency Medical System is responsible for providing all rescue treatment measures outside the hospital. One of the most important and effective concepts in emergency management and decision making is triage. One of the significant challenges in performing different types of triage is the occurrence of miss triage. Identifying and applying solutions to reduce the above challenge is a necessity. Therefore, the present study will be conducted to investigate the effect of drills on triage error in pre-hospital emergency personnel. Method: The present study is a two-group intervention study that will be performed on Emergency Medical System personnel in two cities of Isfahan province. The tools used in this research include: demographic information form questionnaire, triage decision making inventory and designed START triage scenarios. Finally, the collected data will be analyzed by appropriate parametric and nanoparametric statistical tests including mean and standard deviation, independent t-test, paired t-test, K-square, Fisher's exact test and Mann-Whitney. Results: This intervention could potentially reduce the amount of erroneous triage in pre-hospital emergency personnel. Conclusion: Most triage studies have been conducted using the method of discussion-based exercises, most of which have reported moderate knowledge and inadequate skills of the participants. Therefore, the present study focuses on performance-based exercise and will be performed among pre-hospital emergency personnel.