Association Between Pediatric ED Triage Accuracy and Timeliness of Care and Patient Outcomes.

Cohort studyHospital pediatrics· Aug 2026

Association Between Pediatric ED Triage Accuracy and Timeliness of Care and Patient Outcomes.

Daniel D DiLena, Dana R Sax, Adina S Rauchwerger … Mary E Reed

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Emergency MedicineCohort studyClinical practiceQ1IF 1.8

Nearly two-thirds of pediatric emergency department encounters were mistriaged under the Emergency Severity Index system.

Association Between Pediatric ED Triage Accuracy and Timeliness of Care and Patient Outcomes.

Daniel D DiLena … Mary E Reed

Hospital pediatrics · Aug 2026 · Q1 in General Medicine

Background

Emergency department (emergency department) triage promotes timely care for the patients who are sickest.

Methods

We conducted a retrospective cohort study of patients aged less than 18 years with an emergency department encounter across 21 EDs from 2016 to 2020.

n = 1 015 866 encounters

65.8%

Results

65.8%

About two in three pediatric emergency department visits got the wrong triage level, mostly overtriage.

n = 1 015 866 encounters

More results

Patients of high acuity had longer time to orders if undertriaged (23 minutes) vs accurately triaged (14 minutes).

Patients of low acuity that were overtriaged had delays in care (time to orders 25.3 vs 21.8 minutes) and greater emergency department LOS (118.4 vs 82.1 minutes) compared with patients of low acuity that were accurately triaged.

More results

All time differences were statistically significant.

“

Conclusion · 1 of 2

Mistriage is common in pediatric emergency department care and is associated with delays in initiating care.

Conclusion · 2 of 2

Improving accurate triage for pediatric patients may allow for more timely care overall while still prioritizing treatment of the patients that are sickest.

Association Between Pediatric ED Triage Accuracy and Timeliness of Care and Patient Outcomes.

Association Between Pediatric ED Triage Accuracy and Timeliness of Care and Patient Outcomes.

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