Current triage practice and influences affecting clinical decision-making in emergency departments in NSW, Australia.

In Australia, as elsewhere, the nature of triage decision making, patient referral, investigations, physical resources, triage policies, educational requirements and clinical expertise is often unclear and differs between organizations (Gerdtz & Bucknell 2000; Standen 1998). The study described here was undertaken in order to explore current triage practices throughout New South Wales (NSW) and to describe the range of clinical reasoning tasks performed by nurses.