The Use of a Mental Health Triage Assessment Tool in a Busy Canadian Tertiary Care Children's Hospital

  • Ayliffe, Laurie RN
  • Lagace, Carole RN
  • Muldoon, Pat RN

  • Laurie Ayliffe, Carole Lagace, and Pat Muldoon are Staff Nurses, Emergency Department, Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.

For correspondence, write: Laurie Ayliffe, 289 Riverwood Dr, RR2 Woodlawn, Ontario, Canada, K0A 3M0; E-mail: [email protected].

Journal of Emergency Nursing 31(2):p 161-165, April 2005.
The Mental Health Triage Assessment Tool form guidelines help emergency nurses at one Canadian children's hospital to assess, prioritize, and direct patients to the most appropriate care provider. This predesigned form, which was developed over 5 months, is filled out in the same way as the form for other ED patients and seems to make it easier for nurses to ask personal questions. The form also ensures that nurses document appropriate, essential information.
Copyright © 2005 by the Emergency Nurses Association.