A Manchester Triage System (MTS)'s Implementation of a Heap Priority Queue

The reception of the patient in the emergency service must be performed by a risk classification protocol, aiming to prioritize the care according to the severity of the case. Among the existing risk classification protocols, the Manchester Triage System (MTS) created in England, stands out as it determines the level of urgency of each patient.

The nurse responsible for the classification selects the most appropriate flow chart for the main complaint, medical history and signs and symptoms presented by the patient, a discriminator is found and the patient is classified into one of five categories:

Immediate (Red), immediate evaluation by a Physician; Very Urgent (Orange), evaluation within 10 minutes; Urgent (Yellow), 60 minutes; Standard (Green), 2 hours; and Non-Urgent (Blue), 4 hours.

The system implements a priority queue heap that organize this risk classification protocol.