Mindful triage: Improving the quality of care of patients with mental illness in the emergency department

As the emergency department (ED) faces growing demands, rising acuteness, and longer waiting times, effective, efficient, and accurate triage systems become crucial. Precise triage is even more complex when handling admissions of patients with mental health illnesses. Previous research on that matter ignored the cognitive aspects of a provider-patient encounter in the ED, and the fact that clinicians are not immune to cognitive biases. It is suggested here that implementing mindfulness in the triage can contribute in improving accurate triage and better quality of care for patients with mental illness. The paper introduces the concept of mindful triage and discusses practical interventions to this mean.