BACKGROUND Telephone triage is an increasingly common means of handling requests for same-day appointments in general practice. AIM To determine whether telephone triage (GP-led or nurse-led) reduces clinician-patient contact time on the day of the request (the index day), compared with usual care. DESIGN AND SETTING A total of 42 practices in England recruited to the ESTEEM trial. METHOD...

BACKGROUND Predicting case types that are unlikely to be treated by paramedics can aid in managing demand for emergency ambulances by identifying cases suitable for alternative management pathways. The aim of this study was to identify the patient characteristics and triage outcomes associated with 'no paramedic treatment' for cases referred for emergency ambulance dispatch following secondary ...

The death of a previously well 13-month-old infant approximately 5 h after his mother contacted the Queensland Nurse led telephone triage call centre '13Health' for advice is the first Australian casualty of telephone triage. Experience from this case and another 'near miss' incident Australia highlight the potential of this model of care to harm patients using the service when it attempts to p...

NHS Direct is a 24-h patient-led telephone advice service, based in England and Wales, which aims to help callers to self-manage problems and reduce unnecessary demands on other National Health Service (NHS) provision (Munro et al., 2000a). NHS Direct is the world’s largest health care telephone advice service (Munro, 2002) and is leading the current international trend towards telemedicine and...

Telephone consultations with general practitioners (GPs) have not been shown to be an effective way to reduce the demandfor face-to face appointments during the surgery hours. This study aims to determine if GP telephone triage can effectively reduce the demandforface-to -face consultations for patients seeking same-day appointments in general practice. We report an interrupted time series, two...

BACKGROUND Most Australian and all New Zealand residents now have 24 hour access to free telephone advice and symptom triage. Australasia is following an international trend triggered by a perceived need for standardised advice, demand management (primary care and emergency department), and equity of access. A growing literature describes the impact of this new service on existing primary healt...

The aim of this study was to identify the organisation of and knowledge about triage work in Swedish emergency departments (ED) as a first step to understanding what is necessary for decision support in ED triage systems in Sweden. A national survey using telephone interviews for data collection was used. Results showed great variety in how work regarding ED triage is organised and performed. T...