Simply by picking up their phone and making a call a patient can receive quality clinical care and advice, any time, night or day, thus reducing the need for patients to receive care in a hospital or from busy physicians.
A nurse triage tele-medicine program can offer invaluable reassurance to patients by ensuring they are connected to and engaged with their healthcare journey at all times.
Robust yet flexible
RelateCare have been operating a successful and impactful Registered Nurse (RN) nurse triage program since the organization began with Cleveland Clinic over 10 years ago. Since then, the program has grown and developed into a robust yet flexible program that has the capacity to provide care 24/7/365 and to integrate with hospitals, clinics, physician practices, or private physicians associated with hospitals.
Our programs can provide out-of-hours support, or during holidays or off-peak times, but can also become an asset and part of your day-to-day managed-care call center support services.
So how does it work?
It starts with a phone call. A patient makes a call to a dedicated number, or to their healthcare provider seeking assistance. This could be for a variety of reasons (appointment scheduling, medication refills), but often it is due to the presence of symptoms that are causing distress and worry.
The call is answered, either by a scheduling agent, who can direct the patient to the Registered Nurse, or else is answered directly by the Registered Nurse. It is also possible that automated technology can filter the calls to ensure the most high-risk patients get bumped up the queue.
Once connected with the patient, the goal of the RN is to get as much information as possible and to gain an in-depth understanding of the patients’ symptoms and medical history so they can determine the correct care pathway. Empathetic listening is key to this stage.
‘Gold-standard’ protocols
Our RNs leverage the Schmitt-Thompson protocols in order to properly assess the patient’s symptoms, while eliciting further information to gain more insight into the patients’ symptoms. Known as the gold-standard of triage, the Schmitt-Thompson protocols strengthen organizations clinical decision support and help RelateCare RNs to give high-quality healthcare advice and the most suitable level of care pathway for patients.
This can range anywhere from immediately calling 911, down to supporting patient with offering simple care advice, refilling medication, or scheduling an appointment with their physician.
Throughout the call, all the relevant information about the patient and their current situation is documented directly into the Electronic Health Record system of the healthcare provider.
Continuity of Care
This allows for complete continuity of care, as our team of RN’s can be in direct contact with the patient’s care team through phone, secure text messaging, or in-basket messages. The patient can be confident that their care team will remain engaged and informed about their symptoms and treatment plan.
RelateCare’s RN Nurse Triage program standardizes telemedicine care approaches, reduces errors and liabilities, and ultimately creates a more efficient process for assessing and caring for patients.
Ultimately, Nurse Triage saves lives, and our goal is to ensure proper medical care is extended to as many people as possible. This has become ever more important due to COVID.
If you would like to find out more about RelateCare’s Nurse Triage line, please get in touch with us at info@relatecare.com
