Analysis of pediatric emergency department telephone calls

This study analyzed incoming telephone calls to an urban county pediatric emergency department (PED). Data were collected by reviewing recorded incoming calls and written logs for two separate months, six months apart. Eight hundred seventeen calls were reviewed. The largest number of calls for both months (15%) was for upper respiratory infection symptoms. Information, fever, and diarrhea were in the next three ranks for both months. Fifty-three percent were about children under one year of age. Over 50% of the calls were received from 4:00 PM to 12:00 AM during both months. The average length of calls was 4.0 minutes. A review of the logs identified 221 (27%) calls to be emergent or urgent; 197 (89%) of these callers were advised to bring the child to the PED. These data suggest that content for a curriculum should be directed toward common pediatric problems regarding young children, focusing on children under one year of age.