Related Experiment Video
Updated: Oct 8, 2025
Development and Implementation of a Multi-Disciplinary Technology Enhanced Care Pathway for Youth and Adults with Concussion
Published on: January 20, 2019
Service use, clinical outcomes and user experience associated with urgent care services that use telephone-based
Vanashree Sexton1, Jeremy Dale2, Carol Bryce2
1Unit of Academic Primary Care, Warwick Medical School, University of Warwick, Coventry, UK ash.sexton@warwick.ac.uk.
Objective:
To evaluate service use, clinical outcomes and user experience related to telephone-based digital triage in urgent care.
Design:
Systematic review and narrative synthesis.
Data Sources:
Medline, Embase, CINAHL, Web of Science and Scopus were searched for literature published between 1 March 2000 and 1 April 2020.
Eligibility Criteria For Selecting Studies:
Studies of any design investigating patterns of triage advice, wider service use, clinical outcomes and user experience relating to telephone based digital triage in urgent care.
Data Extraction And Synthesis:
Two reviewers extracted data and conducted quality assessments using the mixed methods appraisal tool. Narrative synthesis was used to analyse findings.
Results:
Thirty-one studies were included, with the majority being UK based; most investigated nurse-led digital triage (n=26). Eight evaluated the impact on wider healthcare service use following digital triage implementation, typically reporting reduction or no change in service use. Six investigated patient level service use, showing mixed findings relating to patients' adherence with triage advice. Evaluation of clinical outcomes was limited. Four studies reported on hospitalisation rates of digitally triaged patients and highlighted potential triage errors where patients appeared to have not been given sufficiently high urgency advice. Overall, service users reported high levels of satisfaction, in studies of both clinician and non-clinician led digital triage, but with some dissatisfaction over the relevance and number of triage questions.
Conclusions:
Further research is needed into patient level service use, including patients' adherence with triage advice and how this influences subsequent use of services. Further evaluation of clinical outcomes using larger datasets and comparison of different digital triage systems is needed to explore consistency and safety. The safety and effectiveness of non-clinician led digital triage also needs evaluation. Such evidence should contribute to improvement of digital triage tools and service delivery.
Prospero Registration Number:
CRD42020178500.
More Related Videos
06:28E-Patient Counseling Trial E-PACO: Computer Based Education versus Nurse Counseling for Patients to Prepare for Colonoscopy
Published on: August 1, 2019
07:31Implementation of a Real-Time Psychosis Risk Detection and Alerting System Based on Electronic Health Records using CogStack
Published on: May 15, 2020
Related Concept Videos
01:26Types of Reports III: Telephone and Verbal Reports
Here's an overview of each type:
Telephone Orders
01:15Methods of Documentation VI: Case Management Model
For example, a patient with a chronic...
01:26Methods Of Healthcare Delivery System
Managed Care System:
The managed care system is designed to control the cost while maintaining the quality of care. The patient's care from admission to discharge is planned by the primary care provider or the case manager, also known as the gatekeeper. In a managed care system, the number of care providers is...
01:21Tertiary Healthcare System
01:29Issues And Trends In Healthcare Delivery System
Cost Containment
Payment for healthcare services has historically promoted adoption of costly and often unnecessary or inefficient...
01:26Traditional Level Of Health Care System
The preventive healthcare service includes tests for screening. Preventive health care services include identifying and reducing disease risk...