Telephone Triage: Building Bridges in Nursing Interventions

For the past years, Telephone Triage Nursing has offered countless benefits and help to the citizens of America, especially to those who are not adept healthwise.  Telephone triage, usually done in medical call center, is the process of overseeing the overall health concerns and health condition of the patient without the benefit of actual visualization and observation.  With the triage nurses’ comprehension of the pathophysiology of the infirmity and the normal physiology of the human structure and their impeccable therapeutic communication skills, they are able to ascertain and formulate appropriate nursing diagnosis to the pathologic condition of the patient calling for their help.

In almost 20 years of providing Care Management Services to their patient, CareNet’s telephone triage has managed to improve and maintain the health of their patients through high level communications, reassuring attitudes, conscientious listening and supportive approach in proving quality care and nursing interventions.

The computer era has made everything possible to telephone triage.  Now, communication is exchanged without hindrances, thus allowing appropriate actions to be promptly implemented.  With the use of specified protocols and sole discernment of the patient’s status by means of categorizing their needs for immediate medical and or nursing attention, telephone triage nurses are able to prioritize and ascertain which patient case is likely urgent or less life-threatening.  By doing so, the triage nurses can either make necessary referrals or manage the case themselves as long as it falls in the nursing jurisdictions.  The goal here is to direct the patient on the proper concentration of support in a timely manner to reduce if not avoid pointless and redundant visits to the doctors’ clinics and trips to the hospitals’ emergency rooms.

The Nurse Triage is mainly responsible in taking calls of the patients and in assessing their complaints of headaches, chest pains, abdominal pains, difficulty in breathing, anaphylactic reactions to food or drug, queries about treatment of fever and common colds, newborn rashes, colicky pain, first aid treatment to minor burns, fractures, injuries and poisoning especially in remote areas where the accessibility of immediate medical attention and emergency rooms is not warranted.  Depending on the exigency of the situation, triage nurses are able to make referrals in seeking second medical opinions especially when the patient’s problem is not covered by the scope of the nursing practice.

The telephone triage is not intended to make medical diagnoses over the phone but to formulate an apposite nursing diagnosis based on the presenting signs and symptoms of the patient. By doing so, the triage nurse is able to lay out a plan of care and provide nursing interventions that address the patient’s needs.  As soon as an intervention is implemented and relief of complaints is achieved, a nurse triage is still responsible in making follow-up calls especially to those patient’s who are at high risk of developing complications if not taken care of early.  The follow-up calls involve reassessment of the patient’s status or to make certain that apt management of the illness is pursued.

Other than having an excellent communication skills, telephone triage nurse must have astounding listening skills and be able to notice non-verbal clues that the client is giving out like anxiety, pain, and the how they are able to understand the health teachings.  The telephone triage nurse must be able to analyze the situation and work under pressure and be able function with autonomy.

CareNet oversees the community’s needs in improving and maintaining health and so, they establish rapport and build bridges to bring nursing care right at their doorsteps.  CareNet reaches out to touch…because CareNet cares.

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