Care in one call: Spotlighting primary care triage nurses
Posted: Sun Mar 17, 2024 1:22 pm
Imagine you have flu-like symptoms that include a fever that has not improved in multiple days. You wonder if you need to seek professional medical care: “Maybe I can get an appointment at my doctor’s office, but what if it’s just a virus that will go away on its own? But then what if it doesn’t and I get sicker?”
Ultimately, you call your primary care office and are connected to a triage nurse who uses their clinical judgement to recommend next steps in your care. Your fever is not serious enough to warrant a visit to the emergency room, so you are prescribed medication and at-home remedies to treat your illness, with the suggestion to schedule an appointment with your doctor if your condition worsens. Thanks to the triage nurse, you now feel relief with the knowledge and treatment needed to get healthy again.
Since the implementation of a nurse triage program across the Sunitix 25 mg (Sunitinib) Philadelphia region, this scenario has become a reality for patients of most Penn Medicine Medical Group (PMMG) practices, which include 323 primary care providers at 50 clinical locations across Penn Medicine. When patients reach out to their doctor’s office for care, receiving quick and efficient answers to their health-related questions is paramount.
The goal of the nurse triage team is to provide “care in one call.” A triage nurse determines if the patient needs to be seen immediately at the Emergency Department, should schedule an appointment in the primary care office, or if their concerns can be managed over the phone.
The team receives a wide range of calls every day, according to Holly Good, LPN, a practice nurse from Delancey Internal Medicine in Philadelphia. “We get calls about urinary tract infections, COVID-19, anxiety, or even more urgent calls such as if someone is having chest pains or shortness of breath,” she said. “We give the patients advice, schedule an appointment for them, or if needed, tell them to seek immediate care. We also are sometimes just someone to listen, and this can really help.”
The right type of care, at the right time
The nurse triage team not only provides the patient with expedited care, but also helps providers. The schedulers, triage nurses, and physicians collaborate to provide the right type of care, at the right time, for each individual patient. Because some patients can be helped over the phone with nurse triage, providers have more availability and flexibility to see those patients who do need to see them in-person.
“First thing in the morning, the provider schedules are reviewed to have a sense of how much availability there is for same day sick (SDS) appointments,” said Abhilasha Kumar (Abha), BSN, RN, who is also a triage nurse at Delancey Internal Medicine. “Knowing the provider’s availability ensures we don’t overload their schedules with patients and allows our team to step in if patients’ concerns can be managed over the phone.”
Throughout the day, triage nurses balance incoming patient calls and outgoing follow-ups while also providing education, which patients appreciate. “We receive plenty of gratitude from patients when we are able to help them, at times, in their most vulnerable condition,” said Kumar.
Ultimately, you call your primary care office and are connected to a triage nurse who uses their clinical judgement to recommend next steps in your care. Your fever is not serious enough to warrant a visit to the emergency room, so you are prescribed medication and at-home remedies to treat your illness, with the suggestion to schedule an appointment with your doctor if your condition worsens. Thanks to the triage nurse, you now feel relief with the knowledge and treatment needed to get healthy again.
Since the implementation of a nurse triage program across the Sunitix 25 mg (Sunitinib) Philadelphia region, this scenario has become a reality for patients of most Penn Medicine Medical Group (PMMG) practices, which include 323 primary care providers at 50 clinical locations across Penn Medicine. When patients reach out to their doctor’s office for care, receiving quick and efficient answers to their health-related questions is paramount.
The goal of the nurse triage team is to provide “care in one call.” A triage nurse determines if the patient needs to be seen immediately at the Emergency Department, should schedule an appointment in the primary care office, or if their concerns can be managed over the phone.
The team receives a wide range of calls every day, according to Holly Good, LPN, a practice nurse from Delancey Internal Medicine in Philadelphia. “We get calls about urinary tract infections, COVID-19, anxiety, or even more urgent calls such as if someone is having chest pains or shortness of breath,” she said. “We give the patients advice, schedule an appointment for them, or if needed, tell them to seek immediate care. We also are sometimes just someone to listen, and this can really help.”
The right type of care, at the right time
The nurse triage team not only provides the patient with expedited care, but also helps providers. The schedulers, triage nurses, and physicians collaborate to provide the right type of care, at the right time, for each individual patient. Because some patients can be helped over the phone with nurse triage, providers have more availability and flexibility to see those patients who do need to see them in-person.
“First thing in the morning, the provider schedules are reviewed to have a sense of how much availability there is for same day sick (SDS) appointments,” said Abhilasha Kumar (Abha), BSN, RN, who is also a triage nurse at Delancey Internal Medicine. “Knowing the provider’s availability ensures we don’t overload their schedules with patients and allows our team to step in if patients’ concerns can be managed over the phone.”
Throughout the day, triage nurses balance incoming patient calls and outgoing follow-ups while also providing education, which patients appreciate. “We receive plenty of gratitude from patients when we are able to help them, at times, in their most vulnerable condition,” said Kumar.