BACKGROUND Recent years have seen an increase in primary care workload, especially following the introduction of a new General Medical Services contract in 2004. Telephone triage and telephone consultation with patients seeking health care represent initiatives aimed at improving access to care. Some evidence suggests that such approaches may be feasible but conclusions regarding GP workload, c...

BACKGROUND The Australian government sponsored five local trials aimed at addressing problems in after hours (AH) primary medical care (PMC). The study's objective was to determine if the four trials, where telephone triage was the sole innovation, led to a reduction in AH service utilisation and change in service mix towards AH GP clinics. Changes in utilisation and mix of AH GP clinic and hom...

Lean practices and thinking have increased substantially in the last few years. Applications of lean practices to health care are found worldwide. Despite that, new contributions are required because the application of lean thinking to hospitals has a long way to go. Lean practices and thinking do not include, in the literature or practice programs, any references to triage systems in health ca...

BACKGROUND Surveillance for influenza and influenza-like illness (ILI) is important for guiding public health prevention programs to mitigate the morbidity and mortality caused by influenza, including pandemic influenza. Nontraditional sources of data for influenza and ILI surveillance are of interest to public health authorities if their validity can be established. METHODS/PRINCIPAL FINDING...

BACKGROUND Out-of-hours primary care services have a high general practitioner (GP) workload with increasing costs, while half of all contacts are non-urgent. OBJECTIVES To identify views of GPs to influence the use of the out-of-hours GP cooperatives. METHODS Cross-sectional survey study among a random sample of 800 GPs in the Netherlands. RESULTS Of the 428 respondents (53.5% response r...

Lee TJ, Baraff LJ, Guzy J, et al. Does telephone triage delay significant medical treatment? Advice nurse service vs on-call pediatricians. Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med 2003;157:635–41. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ....

Objectives. One-third of practices signingout to The Children’s Hospital Call Center in Denver, Colorado, choose to do second-level physician (SLP) triage for calls judged by the Center to require after-hours referral (AHR). We examined: 1) the effect of SLP triage on the rate of AHRs and 2) reasons for physicians’ decisions. Design. From January 1998 to August 1998 all calls from patients usin...