Triage

Easiest way to explain this concept is to imagine a wartime situation. Patients can be divided into three categories:

1. Minor problems. If treatment is delayed the patient will still be okay. So it’s okay to make these patients wait.

2. Terminal. These patients will die no matter what treatment they receive. Other lives will be lost if resources are given to treating these patients since they won’t benefit - they will die anyway.

3. Critical problems. These are patients who if they receive timely treatment could be saved. But if they don’t then will likely die or have other serious consequences of not receiving timely treatment. It makes the most sense to focus your efforts on these patients since the treatment will have the most impact.

So triage about acknowledging an uncomfortable reality that when healthcare provider resources are not infinite, choices have to be made on how to allocate those resources to have the maximum beneficial impact.

This happens all the time in healthcare - but isn’t necessarily understood by the wider public.