We describe the development and operations of the first large-scale Australian medical telephone triage centre. Studies have commenced to evaluate efficacy and safety of the service, as well as gauge the impact on demand for healthcare services.

BACKGROUND Telephone triage is a core but vulnerable part of the care process at out-of-hours general practitioner (GP) cooperatives. In the Netherlands, different instruments have been used for assessing the quality of telephone triage. These instruments focussed mainly on communicational aspects, and less on the medical quality of triage decisions. Our aim was to develop and test a minimum se...

Background and objective Cardiff and Vale out-of-hours service (Wales, UK) adopted the ‘expert triage’ service model in April 2013. The purpose of the model was to train and support General Practitioners (GPs) to provide high quality triage in terms of process and outcomes. The aim of this study was to analyse effects on triage outcomes and to examine patient and GP experiences of the ‘expert t...

BACKGROUND Quality assessment and continuous quality feedback to the staff is crucial for safety and efficiency of teleconsultation and triage. This study evaluates whether it is feasible to use an already existing telephone triage protocol to assess the appropriateness of point-of-care and time-to-treat recommendations after teleconsultations. METHODS Based on electronic patient records, we ...

BACKGROUND Communication between patients with limited English proficiency (LEP) and telephone triage services has not been previously explored. The purpose of this study was to determine the utilization characteristics of a primary care triage call center by patients with LEP. METHODS This was a retrospective cohort study of the utilization of a computer-aided, nurse-led telephone triage sys...

BACKGROUND Telephone working is an increasingly important way of managing general practice workload, particularly out of hours. The role of telephone triage, however, in managing acute consultations during the day has not been adequately researched. AIM To determine the impact of telephone triage, conducted by a practice nurse, on the management of same day consultations in a general practice...

OBJECTIVE Telephone triage in patients requesting help may compromise patient safety, particularly if urgency is underestimated and the patient is not seen by a physician. The aim was to assess the research evidence on safety of telephone triage in out-of-hours primary care. METHODS A systematic review was performed of published research on telephone triage in out-of-hours care, searching in ...

OBJECTIVE To assess the quality of telephone triage by following the consecutive phases of its care process and the quality of the clinical questions asked about the patient's clinical condition, of the triage outcome, of the content of the home management advice, and of the safety net advice given at out of hours centres. DESIGN Cross sectional national study using telephone incognito standa...

BACKGROUND Voluntary medical male circumcision (VMMC) reduces HIV acquisition among heterosexual men by approximately 60%. VMMC is a surgical procedure and some adverse events (AEs) are expected. Swaziland's Ministry of Health established a toll-free hotline to provide general information about VMMC and to manage post-operative clinical AEs through telephone triage. METHODS We retrospectively...

OBJECTIVE To compare the workloads of general practitioners and nurses and costs of patient care for nurse telephone triage and standard management of requests for same day appointments in routine primary care. DESIGN Multiple interrupted time series using sequential introduction of experimental triage system in different sites with repeated measures taken one week in every month for 12 month...