Table 1.

Three phases of hospital settings for triage of surgical interventions according to the Thoracic Surgery Outcomes Research Network.

	Hospital setting
	Phase I: Semi-urgent	Phase II: Urgent	Phase 3: Emergent
Example	Solid lung cancer >2 cm Node positive lung cancer	Management of surgical complications in stable patients	Threatened airway Tumor associated sepsis Surgical complications in an unstable patient
Protocol	Surgery should be restricted to those for whom survival will be compromised if not performed within 3 months	Surgery should be performed if survival is compromised if surgery not performed within a few days	Only surgeries with immediate effect on survival should be performed