undertriage

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noun

An inaccurately low prehospital triage value assigned to a set of symptoms or an injury, assessing it as being less severe or traumatic than it truly is; the administrative or societal burden caused by such miscalibration, such as strokes or heart attacks not recognized and treated quickly enough.

Opposite
Scrabble 13

Meanings

nounundertriage (countable and uncountable, plural undertriages)

plural undertriages

  1. countableuncountablemedicineAn inaccurately low prehospital triage value assigned to a set of symptoms or an injury, assessing it as being less severe or traumatic than it truly is; the administrative or societal burden caused by such miscalibration, such as strokes or heart attacks not recognized and treated quickly enough.

    However, our prior study on undertriage of major trauma patients indicated that a significant proportion of trauma patients with an ISS = 75 survived.

    2015 August 1, “Trauma with Injury Severity Score of 75: Are These Unsurvivable Injuries?”, in PLOS ONE, →DOI
    1 more example

    As emergency medicine doctors, we regularly give medical advice to family and close friends when they get sick or are injured and don't know what to do. In a matter of moments, we triage, diagnose, and assemble a logical plan, whatever the issue may be. […] Frankly, it's a service everyone should have. Think about the potential time and money saved if this option for medical care and triage was broadly available. Overtriage would plummet. That's when people run to the emergency department (ED) and wait endless hours, only to be reassured or receive limited treatment. Undertriage would also decline. That's when people should go to the ED but, unwisely, wait. For example, this may occur when symptoms of dizziness end up being a stroke.

    2024 January 31, Jesse M. Pines, Robert D. Glatter, “Commentary: Why Everyone Needs Their Own Emergency Medicine Doctor: How Emerging Models Come Close to Making This Reality”, in Medscape Viewpoints, retrieved 07 Feb 2024

    Antonyms: overtriage

verbundertriage (third-person singular simple present undertriages, present participle undertriaging, simple past and past participle undertriaged)

present singular third person undertriages · participle present undertriaging · participle past undertriaged · past undertriaged

Synonyms & antonyms

nounAn inaccurately low prehospital triage value assigned to a set of symptoms or an injury, assessing it as being less severe or traumatic than it truly is; the administrative or societal burden caused by such miscalibration, such as strokes or heart attacks not recognized and treated quickly enough.

Opposite

verbTo make such a misguided triage assessment.

Opposite

Origin

Cite this entry
APA

undertriage. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 2, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/undertriage

MLA

“undertriage.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/undertriage. Accessed November 2, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “undertriage,” accessed November 2, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/undertriage.

Source: undertriage on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.