Classification of clients enable nurses to perform efficiently while attending to those who need help the most. The nurse should have good assessment skills in order to correctly classify the patients that would enable prompt treatment.

Triage is a way to sort patients by hierarchy based on the severity of health problems and the immediacy with which these problems should be treated. Protocol may be initiated in the triage area.

A triage nurse is responsible for collecting data and classifying the illness or injuries to ensure that the patients most in need of care do not have to wait.

Emergency department triage differs from disaster triage wherein the Emergency department triage the patients who are the most critically ill receive the most resources regardless of potential outcome.