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Review article: Biomedical intelligence

Vol. 149 No. 4142 (2019)

The last decade of symptom-oriented research in emergency medicine: triage, work-up, and disposition

  • Roland Bingisser
  • Christian H. Nickel
DOI
https://doi.org/10.4414/smw.2019.20141
Cite this as:
Swiss Med Wkly. 2019;149:w20141
Published
14.10.2019

Summary

As a result of the ever-increasing use of imaging and clinical chemistry, symptom-oriented research has lost ground in many areas of clinical medicine. In emergency medicine, the importance of symptom-oriented research is obvious, as the three major tasks (triage, work-up and disposition) are still under-investigated. Scientific progress is closely linked to the analysis of readily available information, such as the patients’ symptoms.

A decade ago, there were more questions than answers. Therefore, we describe the state of the evidence and the importance of symptoms for decisions at triage, during work-up and for disposition. Recent advances in each field focusing on symptoms as predictors of outcome and/or diagnosis are shown. Finally, future directions of research regarding novel triage tools, efficient work-up and evidence-based disposition are discussed. Symptom-oriented research has been a driver for medical progress for centuries, and re-focusing on patient-centred clinical research will strengthen this field in the future in order to support smarter medicine.

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