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Words matter: the global relevance of the chief complaint.

The process of triage is underemphasized in most low and middle-income countries (LMIC), limiting the capacity of health systems to provide optimal emergency care, which could prevent a significant proportion of death and disability (1). In this issue of Academic Emergency Medicine, Rice, et al reports the results of an analysis of chief complaints from 29,266 patients who presented to a Ugandan Emergency Unit from 2009 to 2018 (insert Rice, et al citation). The authors sought to determine whether the initial chief complaints independently predicted patient outcomes. The study derived and validated a set of high-risk chief complaints that were found to predict increased three-day mortality, independent of commonly available triage data and vital signs. This commentary discusses the implications of these findings in the context of existing triage tools, and their application in low and middle-income countries.