Fire Agency to Implement Nationwide 'Severity Classification of Emergency Patients Before Hospital Arrival'

Application on Site Starting Next Month

The National Fire Agency announced on the 15th that it will implement the Pre-Hospital Emergency Patient Severity Classification System (Pre-KTAS) nationwide starting from the 1st of next month.

The National Fire Agency has already been implementing a pre-hospital severity classification system that prioritizes treatment for critical patients based on severity rather than the order of arrival at the hospital, to ensure appropriate treatment and measures according to the patient's emergency condition and to determine treatment priority. However, there were difficulties in smooth communication between 119 paramedics and medical institutions during transport because the criteria for severity classification used by 119 paramedics on-site differed from the 'Korean Triage and Acuity Scale (KTAS)' used in hospitals.

Accordingly, the National Fire Agency, the Ministry of Health and Welfare, the National Medical Center (Central Emergency Medical Center), and the Korean Society of Emergency Medicine (KTAS Committee) have continued related discussions since December 2021. After two pilot projects and collecting improvement and supplementation opinions, they enhanced the completeness of the Pre-KTAS, the pre-hospital emergency patient severity classification system.

The Pre-Hospital Emergency Patient Severity Classification System (Pre-KTAS) is a system where 119 paramedics use tablet PCs to perform an initial assessment of the patient (checking for cardiac arrest, apnea, consciousness disorder, etc.), then select a category based on the main symptom, and objectively judge the patient's severity by considering first and second-level factors such as mechanism of injury, pain location, accompanying symptoms, and vital signs.

It has been shown to be more effective in the safety, transport, and classification of severe patients compared to mild patients, and it is expected to increase the acceptance rate of medical institutions by selecting appropriate hospitals according to the patient's symptoms from the transport stage.

In preparation for nationwide implementation in February, the National Fire Agency conducted preliminary training for about 13,000 paramedics nationwide from June to December last year to introduce and operate Pre-KTAS, and continues to provide education by region to ensure the accuracy and objectivity of pre-hospital emergency patient classification and to increase its utilization.

Park Yong-ju, Team Leader of the Emergency Capability Development Team at the National Fire Agency, stated, “Since 119 paramedics with professional qualifications classify patients using the same criteria as hospitals from the field, smoother communication between paramedics and emergency medical staff is expected.” He also urged medical institutions to actively accept severe patients classified by Pre-KTAS.