Table I.

Characteristics of all the patients who visited the emergency department during the two study periods with different triage models.

	Nurse triage 2008		Physician-led team triage 2012
	n	%	n	%	P value
Catchment population	251,000	–	254,000	–	–
Attendances—total number during triage timea	20,261	–	23,800	–	–
Hospital beds	512	–	500	–	–
Attendee, sex					ns
Male	9,747	48.1	11,473	48.2
Female	10,329	51.0	12,327	51.8
Missing data	188	0.9	35	0.1
Included in the study	20,076	100	23,765	100
Attendees, age groups (y)					<0.001
<19	2,501	12.5	3,005	12.6
19–29	1,761	8.8	2,727	11.5
30–44	2,573	12.8	3,288	13.8
45–64	4,852	24.2	5,502	23.2
65–79	4,523	22.5	5,112	21.5
>80	3,866	19.3	4,131	17.4
Attendances, mode of arrival					ns
Ambulance	4,466	22.0	5,155	22.2
Own means	15,793	78.0	18,069	77.8
Staff hour triage time Monday–Fridayb	Hours	Hours per head	Hours	Hours per head	–
Physician	85.34	0.42	87.54	0.37
Nurse/assistant nurse	194.0	0.36	187.0	0.30

^aThe triage times were 09.00–20.00 h in the internal medicine section, 10.30–16.30 h in the orthopaedic section, and 10.00–16.00 h in the surgical section on all weekdays.

^bStaff hours from Monday to Friday were calculated as the number of staff hours per staff category divided by the number of attendances at the time of triage, i.e. 09.00–20.00 h in the internal medicine section, 10.30–16.30 h in the orthopaedic section, and 10.00–16.00 h in the surgical section on all weekdays.