Nurse phone care--a new way of thinking (Part 2)

This article describes the development and design of a nurse phone care system that is integrated into the patient's total care within a multispecialty group practice and is reimbursable. The marketplace made clear to Park Nicollet, a Minneapolis multispecialty group practice of 375 physicians, that its access problem dissatisfied current patients and limited its market attractiveness. At first, Park Nicollet tinkered with its access problem in the tradition of Mobil Oil's ad: ¿For every problem there is a solution: simple, neat and wrong.¿ Thus, an access task force was commissioned. Data was systematically gathered, the root causes were identified, and a nurse phone care system was designed. Some characteristics of the system are: the nurse is a provider of care, using approved guidelines; the service is designed to be reimbursed by third party payers; the patient decides whether he or she is comfortable managing the condition or needs an appointment; documentation of care goes to the medical record and the patient's regular physician; a follow-up call occurs whenever a patient accepts phone care; and it is available 24 hours a day and 365 days a year.