A Ghanaian nurse leader, Sarah Danquah, RN, is advocating a broader approach to triage that places nurses at the centre of efforts to improve patient flow, emergency response and healthcare coordination.

Danquah, a nurse leader, integrated triage practitioner and healthcare systems innovator, says triage should extend beyond determining which patient is seen first to creating coordinated pathways that direct patients to the appropriate care at the right time.

Her proposed Nurse-Led Integrated Triage Framework, currently being developed at Weija Gbawe Municipal Hospital, covers services including Emergency, Outpatient Department, Maternity, Paediatrics, Surgical and Medical units. She says the model is intended to give patients a more coordinated journey across departments rather than treating triage as the responsibility of a single desk.

Danquah began her nursing and triage career at Sunyani Regional Hospital in 2010, shortly after qualifying as a nurse. Her early experience came before the South African Triage Scale was adopted for wider implementation within the Ghana Health Service in 2012. She subsequently moved to Greater Accra Regional Hospital, where she worked in emergency and triage services from 2012 until March 2026.

Reflecting on her experience, Danquah says her focus has evolved from identifying patients who require immediate attention to examining how hospitals can consistently prioritise patients and connect them to appropriate care pathways. “How can we build a system that consistently identifies who needs care first and directs that patient to the right care pathway?” she asks.

She argues that Ghana's healthcare challenges, including rising patient demand, workforce constraints, limited resources and patient-flow difficulties, require not only additional infrastructure but also smarter and better-coordinated systems. Effective triage, she says, can support early identification of emergencies, appropriate prioritisation, referrals and more efficient patient movement.

Danquah is also calling for greater recognition of nurses as clinicians, researchers, educators, advocates, coordinators, innovators and health-system leaders. She believes frontline nursing experience should be transformed into research, policy and practical innovations that address challenges within Ghanaian health facilities.

She further urges African health professionals and institutions to develop and evaluate solutions based on local realities rather than relying exclusively on models developed elsewhere. “What can we develop here?” she asks, arguing that hospitals and frontline healthcare workers generate valuable knowledge that should be documented, researched, evaluated, published and scaled where effective.

Her long-term ambition is to contribute to the global health conversation on universal health coverage, emergency care, patient safety and health-system strengthening, while positioning Africa not only as a recipient of healthcare interventions but also as a source of innovation and knowledge.

Danquah is calling on nurses, hospital managers, researchers, academic institutions, policymakers, digital-health developers, the Ghana Health Service and other stakeholders to collaborate on strengthening integrated triage.