Background:
Emergency departments (ED) are often overwhelmed during mass casualty incidents (MCI). The trade-off between the speed of Simple Triage and Rapid Treatment (START) and the accuracy of the Canadian Triage and Acuity Scale (CTAS) poses a management dilemma. This study aims to evaluate and compare the effectiveness of START and CTAS in ED.
Methods: A systematic literature review (SLR) was conducted using the PRISMA guidelines. Sixteen publications from PubMed, Google Scholar, ScienceDirect, and PMC were evaluated with five main articles analyzed for direct comparison.
Results: The study shows that START is proven to be much faster (average of 33 seconds/patient) with high sensitivity in critical patients but has a high risk of under triage, whereas CTAS takes longer (138 seconds/patient) but excels in clinical accuracy and resource allocation precision. There is no single ideal instrument for MCI.
Conclusion: The implementation of a dual triage model using START at the ED entrance followed by CTAS in the care area is highly recommended to optimally balance response speed and patient safety.
- 1. Bazyar J, Farrokhi M, Salari A, Safarpour H, Khankeh HR. Accuracy of Triage Systems in Disasters and Mass Casualty Incidents; a Systematic Review. Arch Acad Emerg Med. 2022;10(1):e32.
- 2. Pivina L, Messova AM, Zhunussov YT, Urazalina Z, Muzdubayeva Z, Ygiyeva D, et al. Comparative analysis of triage systems at emergency departments of different countries: Implementation in Kazakhstan. Russian Open Medical Journal. 2021;10(3):e0301. doi:10.15275/rusomj.2021.0301
- 3. Curran-Sills G, Franc JM. A pilot study examining the speed and accuracy of triage for simulated disaster patients in an emergency department setting: Comparison of a computerized version of Canadian Triage Acuity Scale (CTAS) and Simple Triage and Rapid Treatment (START) methods. Canadian Journal of Emergency Medicine. 2017;19(5):365–71.
- 4. Lin YK, Chen KC, Wang JH, Lai PF. Simple triage and rapid treatment protocol for emergency department mass casualty incident victim triage. American Journal of Emergency Medicine. 2022;53:99–103. doi:10.1016/j.ajem.2021.12.034
- 5. Wisnesky UD, Kirkland SW, Rowe BH, Campbell S, Franc JM. A Qualitative Assessment of Studies Evaluating the Classification Accuracy of Personnel Using START in Disaster Triage: A Scoping Review. Front Public Health. 2022;10:676704. doi:10.3389/fpubh.2022.676704
- 6. Koşargelir M, Akpınar G. Comparison of triple triage system and CTAS (Canadian Triage and Acuity Scale) system in the emergency department. Journal of Surgery and Medicine. 2025;9(10):176–80. doi:10.28982/josam.8315
- 7. Abdul-Nabi SS, Hitti E. A review of mass casualty incident triage tools for hospital-based triage. Turk J Emerg Med. 2025. doi:10.4103/tjem.tjem_77_25
- 8. Purwadi H, Breaden K, McCloud C, Pranata S. The SALT and START Triage Systems for Classifying Patient Acuity Level: A Systematic Review. Nurse Media Journal of Nursing. 2021;11(3):413–27. doi:10.14710/nmjn.v1113.37008
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