Nirzarini Vora

and 2 more

OBJECTIVE: The Maternal Foetal Triage Index (MFTI), a five-tier scale designed by Ruhl et al (2015) has been evaluated in this study for women attending the triage area of a tertiary hospital, to examine the effect on third delay and maternal and neonatal outcomes. DESIGN: Prospective observational study SETTING: The Labour and Delivery Unit of a tertiary care hospital SAMPLE: A convenience sample of 1000 women METHODS: Assessment included maternal history, baseline vital signs and obstetric examination and categorised the woman as per the MFTI scale. Evaluation of the MFTI score was assessed based on predefined maternal and neonatal outcomes within 24h of attendance. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Flow of patients to triage, presenting complaints, Duration of hospital stay, maternal and neonatal outcomes within 24h of admission. RESULTS: A priority wise distribution of subjects based on their clinical diagnosis was found to be statistically significant for anaemia, previous caesarean, postpartum haemorrhage, miscarriage and hypertensive disorders. Sixty seven percent of the subjects belonged to Priority 3-4 and the mean hospital stay duration varied from 8.26±7.68 days for Priority 1 to 3.82±2.74 days for Priority 4 ((p<0.0001). The average time spent in the triage room was 30±17minutes. A priority wise analysis of maternal and neonatal outcomes based on OBICU and NICU admissions, mortality and stillbirths was found to be significant. CONCLUSION: The MFTI scale significantly reduced the third delay, which is crucial in a high-volume, low resource setting. This also simplified handover, improved documentation and decreased time to secondary healthcare provider assessment. KEYWORDS:obstetrictriage,acuity,thirddelay,maternalmortality