“Emergency Responder Teams” in Hospital Patient Care

In antiquity, triage was primarily a military concept. Following a battle, the commander would walk through the carnage and select from among the wounded those with a “probable” potential of getting back into battle if primitive resuscitative procedures were applied. There were few if any resources to expend on wounded men unlikely to improve. These brutally quick ad hoc decisions were usually based on subjective criteria, experience, and serendipity. Modern triage has graduated to a more evidence-based assessment by experts of survivability and possibility of organ failure reversal, as seen in current Advanced Trauma Life Support programs.