Abstract

MENDIOLA RUIZ, R. et al. Telephone triage in Primary Care: analysis of the implementation of a model. Rev Pediatr Aten Primaria [online]. 2014, vol.16, n.63, pp.205-210. ISSN 1139-7632.  https://dx.doi.org/10.4321/S1139-76322014000400002.

Purpose: the aim of this study is to know the response capacity of the nurses' telephone triage and users' satisfaction. Materialand methods: among the calls received for consultations from February 15 to June 30 of 2011, the nurse collected demographic variables, history of chronic diseases, reason for consultation, symptoms of the patient and subsequent action. Three to 10 days later, a satisfaction survey on the care received was conducted. Data were entered in Access Office 2007 and analyzed using SPSS 19.0. Results: the telephone triage represents 15.5% of total consultations attended in the area of pediatrics. Calls analyzed: 663; 52.8% were male. The mean age was 4.9 years. Immigrant population: 4.5%. Chronic illness: 5.3%. The duration of symptoms was 2.9 days (SD: 2.8). Clinical consultations: 80.3% (23.8% fever; 15.4% cough; 9.1% sore throat). Nonclinical consultations: 19.7%. The nurse referred 72.7% of the cases to the pediatrician the same day, 10% were scheduled an appointment and 17.3% of cases were resolved without intervention of the pediatrician. Among nonclinical visits, 83% resolved without requiring clinical intervention of the pediatrician versus 9% in the case of clinical visits. Calls considering useful the nurse's advice were 93.4% and 93.9% did not require to be treated in any other service. Conclusions: the resolution of non clinical visits without pediatrician's intervention was very high compared to clinical visits. The user satisfaction was high.

Keywords : Telephone triage; Telephone consultation; Primary Care.

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