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Emergency Department Attendance after Telephone Triage: A Population-Based Data Linkage Study
Amy Gibson1, Deborah Randall1, Duong T Tran1
1Centre for Big Data Research in Health, UNSW, Sydney, NSW, Australia.
Health Services Research
|April 4, 2017
Summary
Most patients followed telephone triage advice to visit an emergency department (ED). Those compliant with healthdirect helpline recommendations had lower triage urgency in the ED compared to the general population.
Area of Science:
- Health Services Research
- Emergency Medicine
- Public Health
Background:
- Telephone triage services provide crucial initial assessments for patients seeking emergency care.
- Understanding patient compliance and subsequent acuity is vital for optimizing emergency department (ED) resource allocation.
Purpose of the Study:
- To assess compliance with telephone helpline advice to attend an emergency department (ED).
- To evaluate the acuity of patients presenting to the ED after utilizing a telephone triage service.
Main Methods:
- A population-based, observational cohort study using linked data from New South Wales, Australia (2009-2012).
- Analysis included 1.04 million calls to a telephone triage service, ED presentations, hospital admissions, and death registrations.
- Measured ED presentations within 24 hours for compliant and self-referred patients, analyzing triage categories.
Main Results:
- 66.5% of patients complied with advice to attend an ED.
- 6.2% of low-urgency cases self-referred to the ED within 24 hours.
- Compliant patients were less likely (7.8%) to receive the least urgent triage category compared to the general ED population (16.9%).
Conclusions:
- This study provides precise estimates of ED attendance following telephone triage.
- Patients attending EDs compliant with helpline advice show significantly lower urgency upon arrival.
- Findings highlight the effectiveness of telephone triage in guiding appropriate ED utilization.