The Criteria of Triage Nursing and a Mock Disaster Assignment

Triage nursing requires an experienced RN with the ability to act quickly and competently in an emergency situation. There are four criteria that make up triage. A red tag symbolizes a patient with injuries that must be treated immediately in order to survive. A yellow tag is reserved for those with injuries that do require medical treatment, but can be postponed. A green tag describes the “walking wounded,” or a patient with only minor injuries. A black tag is used for those in which death is imminent. This system of color coding makes for an organized treatment plan in what would otherwise be a caotic situation. In the mock disaster assignment, I was assigned the role of a Registered Nurse. I was in the yellow tag room, where I was responsible for rapid patient assessment upon arrival. I worked with a team of nurses to come up with the best treatment possible for our patient. I used my nursing knowledge to evaluate each patient appropriately. By being a nurse in the yellow tag room, I learned a great deal about the triage process. Green and yellow tag patients can be quite hard to distinguish between at times. For example, I was given a patient tagged yellow that had a fractured arm. This patient had no complaints of pain, and had a pulse in her extremity. Thinking that this patient was stable, I quickly moved her to the green tag room to make more room for incoming patients. The patient was quickly sent back to the yellow tag room, with the complaint that only weak pulses were present. As I thought further about my patient scenario, I was able to understand the process behind why this patient would be considered a yellow tag. Although a fracture may seem to be quite stable on a large scale, it does need to be treated in a timely manner for various reasons. I realized that tagging a patient is not always as clear-cut as it may seem. You truly must consider every aspect of the patient’s symptoms in order to triage them correctly. I now understand why such a