Where does secondary triage occur in an MCI workflow?

Where does secondary triage occur in an MCI workflow?

• A. In treatment areas after initial triage
• B. In the field before transport
• C. At the hospital receiving area
• D. During patient handoff to EMS

Answer: (A)

Secondary triage is the reassessment step that takes place after initial triage, in the treatment area. After responders perform quick primary triage in the field to sort patients by urgency, they bring patients to the treatment area where care is started. There, a secondary triage reevaluates each patient’s vitals, injuries, and response to treatment, and updates their priority as new information and resources become available. This helps ensure that the most seriously deteriorating patients are identified and moved for definitive care, while those who stabilize can be downgraded to less urgent status. It wouldn’t occur in the field before transport, where primary triage is carried out to rapidly categorize patients. It isn’t done at the hospital receiving area, which handles hospital-based triage for ED resource allocation. And it isn’t about the handoff to EMS during transport, which focuses on transfer communication rather than on-scene re-prioritization.

Secondary triage is the reassessment step that takes place after initial triage, in the treatment area. After responders perform quick primary triage in the field to sort patients by urgency, they bring patients to the treatment area where care is started. There, a secondary triage reevaluates each patient’s vitals, injuries, and response to treatment, and updates their priority as new information and resources become available. This helps ensure that the most seriously deteriorating patients are identified and moved for definitive care, while those who stabilize can be downgraded to less urgent status.

It wouldn’t occur in the field before transport, where primary triage is carried out to rapidly categorize patients. It isn’t done at the hospital receiving area, which handles hospital-based triage for ED resource allocation. And it isn’t about the handoff to EMS during transport, which focuses on transfer communication rather than on-scene re-prioritization.