CONCLUSION

Telephone triage is a recognized specialty in primary care and specialty practices. The telephone triage system is composed of five components: qualified staff, training programs, standards, guidelines, and documentation. Its structure and process are integrated to help reduce common errors—failures of assessment, communications, continuity, informed consent, and human error.

Critical-thinking skills and a systematic approach can remedy many potential pitfalls. These include the following practices:

• Identify what is salient and ignore what is not.
• Apply rules of thumb to make timely decisions.
• Recognize “red flags” to quickly identify high-risk problems or populations.
• Employ consistent, comprehensive assessment and data-collection strategies.
• Use the nursing process, modified for telephone triage.
• Use a documentation form with the nursing process embedded.
• Apply guidelines that support the nursing process.

Telephone triage nurses use the nursing process and professional judgment to achieve safe, timely outcomes, getting patients to the right place at the right time for the right reason.