@article{9e282edafd8d467a8211bd89df73cde9,
title = "Emergency department triage and COVID-19: Performance of the Interagency Integrated Triage Tool during a pandemic surge in Papua New Guinea",
abstract = "Objective: To determine the sensitivity of the Interagency Integrated Triage Tool to identify severe and critical illness among adult patients with COVID-19. Methods: A retrospective observational study conducted at Port Moresby General Hospital ED during a three-month Delta surge. Results: Among 387 eligible patients with COVID-19, 63 were diagnosed with severe or critical illness. Forty-seven were allocated a high acuity triage category, equating to a sensitivity of 74.6\% (95\% CI 62.1–84.7) and a negative predictive value of 92.7\% (95\% CI 88.4–95.8). Conclusion: In a resource-constrained context, the tool demonstrated reasonable sensitivity to detect severe and critical COVID-19, comparable with its reported performance for other urgent conditions.",
keywords = "COVID-19, emergency care, Papua New Guinea, triage",
author = "Rob Mitchell and Carl Kingston and Rayleen Tefatu and Sarah Bornstein and Mangu Kendino and Duncan Sengiromo and Jasper Pole and Sylvia Kuk and Betty Josaiah and Leigh Elton and Colin Banks and Sarah K{\"o}rver and Peter Cameron and Gerard O'Reilly",
note = "Funding Information: The authors would like to acknowledge all ED clinicians at PMGH who have contributed to the care of COVID‐19 patients throughout the pandemic. Implementation of the IITT at PMGH was undertaken as part of the Clinical Support Program (Phase II), facilitated by Johnstaff International Development on behalf of the Australian Government through the PNG‐Australia Partnership. RM is supported by a National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) Postgraduate Scholarship and a Monash Graduate Excellence Scholarship; GOR is supported by a NHMRC Early Career Research Fellowship; and PC is supported by a Medical Research Future Fund Practitioner Fellowship. Funders had no role in study design, results analysis or manuscript preparation. Open access publishing facilitated by Monash University, as part of the Wiley ‐ Monash University agreement via the Council of Australian University Librarians. Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2022 The Authors. Emergency Medicine Australasia published by John Wiley \& Sons Australia, Ltd on behalf of Australasian College for Emergency Medicine.",
year = "2022",
month = oct,
doi = "10.1111/1742-6723.13980",
language = "English",
volume = "34",
pages = "822--824",
journal = "EMA - Emergency Medicine Australasia",
issn = "1742-6731",
publisher = "Wiley-Blackwell",
number = "5",
}