| Registered Nurses trained in triage are exceptional | | | | triage will be able keep someone from making an |
| health care providers. Many health care services offer | | | | unnecessary trip to the emergency room. Sometimes |
| around-the-clock telephone support. It ranges from | | | | it will mean the difference between life and death. But |
| simple health advice hotlines to full-blown diagnostic | | | | it has not always been easy to get people to see the |
| assessment. Telephone triage falls into the later | | | | advantage of this specialized branch of the health |
| category. Rather than providing answers to general | | | | care industry. It was hard for people to believe that |
| health questions, the telephone triage nurse has been | | | | someone could effectively make assessments as to |
| trained to assess a caller’s health condition | | | | severity of a health issue and then suggest an |
| without any physical examination. | | | | appropriate care response without making a thorough |
| In many cases the cause of a patient’s concern | | | | physical examination. Even if the nurse had a thick |
| is obvious – high fever, a non-life threatening | | | | manual to refer to – the time it would take to |
| injury.But at other times, the cause for concern is | | | | cross-reference data might end up causing more |
| masked by a number of overlapping symptoms. In | | | | anxiety and distrust that if the patient just went to the |
| order to be able to conduct effective telephone triage | | | | local emergency room. But all that would change when |
| a nurse must rely on a unique skill set that takes into | | | | telephone triage entered the computer age. |
| account a keen ear for detail, an extensive knowledge | | | | The computer revolution changed how telephone |
| of how diseases and other ailments present | | | | triage worked.Taking advantage of sophisticated |
| themselves through a broad age range of patients and | | | | computer programs loaded with numerous interlaced |
| the ability to communicate in such a way at to create | | | | medical diagnostic problem-solving procedures, the |
| trust and credibility with the public. It takes a special, | | | | telephone triage nurse is able to discern a pathway |
| highly trained person to excel in this vital healthcare | | | | that leads to solid diagnosis.The process is something |
| profession. | | | | akin to the famous 20-question binary search algorithm |
| Sometimes a correct diagnosis through telephone | | | | developed by early computer scientists. |