NUR 290 Lecture Notes - Lecture 23: Spinal Cord, Heart, Pneumothorax
Document Summary
In the emergency room (er), patients are triaged based on their presenting signs and symptoms. The patients who have severe symptoms are seen immediately, while patients who don"t will have to wait to be seen. There are four colors and a wounded individual will be tagged one color based on their health status. The four colors include: red, yellow, green, black. To help you keep the meaning of the tag colors red, yellow, and green separated, think of a traffic light and what you do at the traffic light when it turns certain colors. The reason i include this is because many students get confused about these three colors on exams. The black tag color is easy to remember because black is most commonly associated with death, which is the meaning of this tag color. Therefore, when a patient is tagged red, stop and get them treatment because they have first priority in receiving care: seen 1st.
