Parental compliance with after hours telephone triage advice: nurse advice service versus on-call pediatricians.

To compare parental compliance with after-hours triage advice provided by telephone advice nurses and on-call pediatricians, a randomized controlled trial was undertaken at a university general pediatrics practice that enrolled parents or guardians calling for after-hours advice. Advice calls were randomized to a call center advice nurse or the on-call pediatrician. Parental compliance with the triage advice and agreement of the parental report of advice with the pediatrician/nurse report of advice given was evaluated. There were 566 participants in the pediatrician and 616 in the nurse group. Compliance with advice (pediatrician v. nurse) was not significantly different for emergent/urgent care (75.8% v. 72.6%) and self care (74.3% v. 77.2%) but was significantly higher in the pediatrician group for office care (51.5% v. 29.6%; 95% CI of difference, 8.9%-34.2%). Overall agreement between the caller reported and physician or nurse advice was 84.5% for emergent/ urgent, 42.7% for office care, and 93.7% for self-care.

Does telephone triage delay significant medical treatment?: Advice nurse service vs on-call pediatricians.

BACKGROUND: Advice nurse call centers are used to ensure access to medical advice, thereby potentially reducing the costs of health services. OBJECTIVE: To determine if medical advice from advice nurses and on-call physicians delays significant medical treatment in a general pediatrics population. DESIGN: Randomized controlled trial. SETTING: A university general pediatrics faculty practice. PARTICIPANTS: Parents or guardians calling for after-hours advice regarding their children.Intervention After-hours medical advice calls were randomized at the time of the call to an advice nurse or an on-call pediatrician. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: The proportion of callers who sought medical care not advised by the advice nurse or on-call pediatrician and the proportion who received unadvised significant care. RESULTS: There were 1182 advice calls: 566 in the pediatrician group and 616 in the advice nurse group. There were no significant differences in the types of telephone triage advice in the physician and advice nurse groups. There was no significant difference in the proportion of callers who sought unadvised care (108 [19.9%] in the physician group vs 110 [19.0%] in the advice nurse group) or in the proportion of callers who received unadvised significant care (23 [4.2%] in the physician group vs 25 [4.3%] in the advice nurse group). CONCLUSIONS: The proportions of callers who sought unadvised medical care and who received unadvised significant care were not significantly different in the advice nurse and pediatrician groups. This suggests that advice nurses do not delay significant medical treatment when compared with pediatricians.

Caller satisfaction with after-hours telephone advice: nurse advice service versus on-call pediatricians.

OBJECTIVE: To compare caller satisfaction with after-hours medical advice provided by a for-profit nurse advice service with advice provided by on-call pediatricians. METHODS: The study setting was the general pediatrics faculty practice of an urban university medical center. Participants were parents or guardians of a population of approximately 6000 children calling for after-hours medical advice over a 10-month period from January 18 to November 20, 2000. After-hours medical advice calls were randomized to either a nurse advice service or the on-call pediatrician. Caller satisfaction and subsequent health care utilization were measured by a telephone survey of callers and review of all health care visits within 3 days of the initial telephone advice call. RESULTS: Five hundred sixty-six (48%) callers were enrolled in the on-call pediatrician group, and 616 (52%) were enrolled in the advice nurse group. Caller satisfaction was rated as very good or excellent significantly more often for the on-call pediatrician than for the nurse advice service as follows: telephone call overall (68.5% vs 55.0%; 95% confidence interval [CI] of difference: 8.0%-19.0%), thoroughness and competence of the person they spoke with (74.0% vs 59.1%; 95% CI of difference: 9.6%-20.2%), courtesy and friendliness of the person they spoke with (77.4% vs 73.9%; 95% CI of difference: -1.4%-8.4%), length of time spent waiting (70.8% vs 60.1%; 95% CI of difference: 5.4%-16.2%), time spent talking with the on-call pediatrician or advice nurse (68.2% vs 52.4%; 95% CI of difference: 10.2%-21.3%), and the medical advice given (68.6% vs 53.9%; 95% CI of difference: 9.2%-20.1%). Compliance with the advice given was significantly higher for office care in the on-call pediatrician group (51.5% vs 29.6%; 95% CI of difference: 8.9%-34.2%). Repeat calls for advice were significantly more frequent for the nurse advice service, both within 4 hours (13.0% vs 4.8%; 95% CI of difference: 5.0%-11.4%), and within 72 hours (23.4% vs 13.3%; 95% CI of difference: 5.8%-14.5%). CONCLUSION: Callers were less satisfied with medical advice provided by a nurse advice service compared with the traditional on-call pediatrician. The lower satisfaction was associated with somewhat poorer compliance with recommended triage dispositions and more frequent repeat calls for medical advice.