Treatment FAQ

when doing triage in a disaster situation leaving a person whose injuries are beyond treatment

by Dr. Giovanni Runte V Published 3 years ago Updated 2 years ago

In a normal triage situation, you take the most critically injured/ill first. In mass casualty, you treat the ones with the highest chance of survivability first and sometimes the more seriously hurt/ill don't get treated because you have to spread your resources out where they will do the most good. Open An Account To Comment

22: When doing triage in a disaster situation, leaving a person whose injuries are beyond treatment with the available resources to attend to someone whose injuries, though serious, can be cared for with resources available is considered: ethically appropriate.

Full Answer

What is the importance of triage in disaster management?

Aug 17, 2015 · Multiple Injury Triage: Tier 1. Highest priority. Stabilize as best you can and arrange immediate evacuation should the casualty present the following; Severe bleeding (flow of blood cannot be stemmed using pressure). Unconsciousness (patient completely unresponsive and appears to be comatose or comatose like state).

Can You triage in an emergency?

Jan 06, 2020 · During triage in a mass casualty incident, patients are grouped into the following categories of decreasing treatment priority: Immediate: Casualties who are in need of life-saving interventions and require immediate treatment . Urgent: These casualties are unwell but with a degree of stability. They are unable to walk but have comparatively ...

What happens to a casualty at the point of triage?

Nov 01, 2005 · Triage during a mass disaster: The usual rules don’t apply. Hard choices must be made, but establish ethical criteria ahead of time. A catastrophic disaster, either natural or manmade, that not only results in widespread casualties but also wipes out medical resources can force health care providers to abandon typical delivery of care and shift to a kind of …

How do you categorize victims in a triage system?

When doing triage in a disaster situation, leaving a person whose injuries are beyond treatment with the available resources to attend to someone whose injuries, though serious, can be cared for with resources available is considered: a. unprofessional behavior. b. abandonment of the person. c. inappropriate nursing care. d. ethically appropriate.

What ethical theory is triage?

From the perspective of ethical theories, triage is commonly seen as a classic example of distributive justice, which addresses the question of how benefits and burdens should be distributed within a population [10].Oct 7, 2011

Does the law require you to respond in disaster situations do RNS have a contractual responsibility to respond in disaster situations?

Good Samaritan Law: Nurse

A licensed nurse who, in good faith, provides emergency care at the scene of an emergency which occurs outside the nurse's employment will not be held legally responsible for acting or failing to act. They can be held legally responsible if acting with extreme carelessness.

What legal and ethical standards must healthcare workers be expected to uphold in a disaster?

They must ensure the legal protections such as liability standards, license verification, and definition of scope of practice for nurses and other licensed practitioners providing care in disasters.

Which tag color according to the disaster triage tag system is assigned to a client who has an immediate threat to life?

According to the disaster triage tag system, a red colored tag is used for a client who has an immediate threat to life. A black colored tag is used for a client who is expected to die or is dead.

What is triage in a disaster?

Triage is the allocation of limited resources during a disaster. Although the concept of triage applies to all resources, “patient care” is the most commonly discussed field for which the notion of triage is used [1]. Triage is one of the key principles of the effective management of major emergencies [2].Feb 12, 2019

What is the disaster triage tag system?

The color-coded tagging system includes four colors: red, yellow, green, and black. The START method stands for "simple triage and rapid treatment" and is used to quickly assess the wounded individual's breathing, circulation, and neuro status (specifically mental status).Jan 2, 2020

What is triage in disaster management?

Background: Disaster triage is a process of categorizing and sorting patients by the degree of severity of the condition, the availability of medical and transportation facilities and it is a dynamic process of rapidly and systematically categorizing the patient according to the severity of injury in disaster Therefore ...Oct 13, 2020

Why is it important to monitor the time of the staff in PPE triaging?

Monitoring the time of the staff in PPE triaging is important. The time when each team member is completely donned in his or her PPE is written on the back of his or her PPE suit. This gives the safety officers and other team members an opportunity to help identify times for changing out staff. Time limitations for staff to be in PPE performing triage or decontamination depend on or may change due to the level of PPE, weather conditions, and/or response of staff to the stress level of the event.

Why is triage important?

By providing for the equitable and rational distribution of casualties among the available hospitals, triage reduces the burden on each to a manageable level, often even to “non-disaster” levels.

Why is triage necessary in CBRN?

In a mass casualty situation due to chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear (CBRN) event, triage is absolutely required for categorizing the casualties in accordance with medical care priorities. Dealing with a CBRN event always starts at the local level.

What is the purpose of triage in a disaster?

The basic concept of conventional triage is to do the greatest good for the individual patient. The objective of disaster triage (field triage) is to do the greatest good for the greatest number of people.

How does triage reduce the burden of medical care?

By separating out the minor injuries, triage reduces the urgent burden on medical facilities and organizations. On average, only 10–15% of disaster casualties are serious enough to require overnight hospitalization.

What was the Bhopal disaster?

In 1984, the release of toxic methylisocyanate gas had occurred suddenly and without warning from the union carbide plant in Bhopal, the capital city of Madhya Pradesh. This was one of the world's worst industrial disasters which occurred in the early morning hours of December 3, 1984 in India. This disaster had created thousands of casualties thereby overwhelming local, health and medical resources.[3] The complexity of the Bhopal crisis was underscored by the severe mortality and morbidity as well as its occurrence in a developing nation that had little experience in dealing with chemical disasters. The disaster exposed serious deficiencies in preparedness and major problems of coordination.[4,5] In that catastrophic situation, however, an appropriate triage may have helped in the better utilization of the available medical resources to meet the needs. Despite this knowledge, specific expertise, education, and training of CBRN responders working in the field of hazardous materials (hazmat) are not well organized probably due to the lack of standardization, availability of necessary protocols, training programs, and international standards.[6–10]

What are the three groups of triaging?

One of the practical triaging of patients is categorizing into one of three groups: (1) immediate care, (2) delayed care, and (3) unsalvageable. Numbers, colors, or symbols may be used to denote the different triage categories.

What to do in case of multiple casualties?

In the case of multiple casualties, assess and evacuate the victims as quickly (and safely) as possible. Obviously, this requires a judgement call on your behalf that can be quite stressful, but at the end of the day, it’s about the patients well being and if you’re following the proper protocol for keeping yourself out of legal trouble as a first aider, other than that – just do the best you can. Remember to frequently re-assess the casualties and change priorities as the situation develops (or deteriorates, as the case may be).

Why is it important to triage?

Triage is important in order to ultimately help save each victim’s life. Your goal as a first aider should always be to stabilize each person for transportation so that they can receive professional treatment in a medical facility where further tests can be performed to establish the true extent of their injuries.

What is the term for respiratory issues that affect the ability to breathe?

Asphyxia or respiratory issues affecting ability to breath (self-explanatory, people gotta breathe).

What to do if someone doesn't want you to help?

If they are adults and conscious, I would frankly suggest you to listen – if they don’t want your help, do yourself a favour and walk away. You could get into serious trouble for helping someone when they explicitly told you they don’t want that help from you. I know that this is a grim analysis but many good Samaritans have been screwed over in lawsuits for trying to help, so I feel its my duty to drive this point home to my readers.

What is minor bleeding?

Minor bleeding (flow of blood is easily contained using pressure). Minor fractures (dislocated joints would also fall in the category). Erratic behaviour or shock of a psychological nature (as long as they are not a threat to themselves or others, don’t get involved and let the professionals deal with this).

Can you be overwhelmed by an accident?

If you’re the type of first aider who feels compelled to actively help during situations like these, once you have assessed the situation and found multiple sustained injuries, first and foremost know that it is completely normal for you to feel overwhelmed with the situation.

Is a back injury life threatening?

Back injuries (yes, it may be surprising to see back injuries in this category, but as long as the person is not moved and in a safe position, back injuries are not, generally speaking, life threatening). Fractures (try to limit movement, but as a general rule, you can move on to more serious injuries).

How to triage paediatric casualties?

A simple way to combat some of the challenges of triaging paediatric casualties is with the use of paediatric triage tape. This can be used to measure the casualty’s length from heel to top of head, and the estimated weight as well as a triage sieve algorithm with suitably adjusted values, can be read off the tape at the appropriate point.

Why is triage sieve important?

The triage sieve aims to be objective and readily reproducible.

What is triage in medical terms?

In the medical context, this sorting is of patients, by priority, for initial treatment and subsequent transport to a facility where more definitive care is available. (1) Triage is a common feature of Emergency Departments ...

When time and resources allow, a secondary, more detailed triage assessment is made?

It may be performed at the scene if evacuation times are prolonged, or more commonly occurs at the casualty clearing station or on a patients arrival to hospital (7). Perhaps a key difference in secondary triage is that, where appropriate personnel are available, clinician judgement is allowed. This would capture patients such as the airway burns case considered above.

What is the purpose of primary triage?

The purpose of primary triage at a major incident is not to provide medical care but rather to identify patients in need of life-saving intervention by other healthcare providers. There are generally two exceptions to the ‘triage not treatment’ rule (5):

When is triage paramount?

Effective triage is therefore paramount in these situations aiming to allow ordered prioritisation in what is likely to be a chaotic situation.

Is Jumpstart the same as MPTT24?

It is clear from this flowchart that the JumpSTART algorithm considers similar physiological parameters to the MPTT24 adult triage tool discussed above, however to account for the variability of normal physiological values in paediatric patients, a broader normal range for respiratory rate is used, and simply the presence or absence of a pulse as the cardiovascular measure. Studies have shown this tool to be easily remembered by clinicians and to improve accuracy of triaging paediatric patients (12).

What is triage in hospitals?

hospital on an average, non-disasterous day typically consists of identifying the sickest or most critically injured patients and getting them appropriate care as quickly as possible, perhaps temporarily bypassing patients who are less sick or injured.

Why are criteria developed for triaging patients in a disaster?

Criteria have been developed for triaging patients in a disaster, in an effort to make as many decisions as routine as possible. Those are somewhat successful, Moskop continues, but don’t remove all discretion and responsibility from the person making triage decisions.

What does Epstein say about disasters?

Epstein says that in a disaster, doing what’s best for the individual patient is supplanted by "society’s competing interest."

What happens when a disaster wipes out medical resources?

A catastrophic disaster, either natural or manmade, that not only results in widespread casualties but also wipes out medical resources can force health care providers to abandon typical delivery of care and shift to a kind of battlefield medicine, where the sickest patients may not be treated so that care can be delivered to more.

What is the first priority in lifesaving?

This can include deciding priority — which can mean giving first priority to immediate lifesaving , second priority to those needing urgent but not lifesaving care, then those with minor injuries, and last, those who are so severely injured that they stand little chance of survival. That last group of patients, many say bluntly, may have to be considered a waste of scarce resources.

Why was Orledge's decision easier than those made by hospital-based physicians in a disaster?

In some ways, Orledge says, his decisions may have been easier than those made by hospital-based physicians in a disaster, because what he could offer patients was limited.

What is the cornerstone of American health care?

A prize cornerstone of American health care, patient autonomy, by necessity, falls victim to the pursuit of the greater good when disasters strike, Epstein and Moskop point out.

What is a triage tag?

a tool first responders and medical personnel use during a mass casualty incident. Triage tags allow responders to effectively and efficiently distribute limited resources and provide the necessary immediate care for the victims until more help arrives.

What is triage in medical terms?

A process for sorting injured people into groups based on their need for or likely benefit from immediate medical treatment. Triage is used in hospital emergency rooms, on battlefields, and at disaster sites when limited medical resources must be allocated

What is the first step in S.T.A.R.T?

First Step in S.T.A.R.T. is to separate victims into ambulatory & non-ambulatory if not all ready done. ( MASS )

How long does it take to tag a victim?

a strategy used to evaluate the severity of injury of each victim as quickly as possible and tag the victims in about 30-60 seconds.

What to say to someone who can hear me?

Move:" Everyone who can hear me and needs medical attention, please move to a designated area now!"

What was the Germans' use of genocidal agents?

used by the Germans during WWII as a genocidal agent. Used in manufacturing paper, textiles & plastics

What is a disaster?

A disaster is an event that exceeds the capabilities of the response.

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