Telephone Triage in Pediatric Head Injury: Follow-up Patterns and Subsequent Diagnosis of Concussion

Head injuries in childhood can result in concussion. Families of a child with a head injury often seek medical advice through telephone triage call systems. It is important to understand if patients follow telephone triage recommendations and what proportion of triage calls result in subsequent conc...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Clinical nursing research 2021-02, Vol.30 (2), p.104-109
Main Authors: McDonald, Catherine C., Pfeiffer, Melissa R., Robinson, Roni L., Arbogast, Kristy B., Master, Christina L.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Childhood
Concussion
Head injuries
Health education
Injuries
Medical diagnosis
Nursing
Patient education
Pediatrics
Telemedicine
Triage
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Head injuries in childhood can result in concussion. Families of a child with a head injury often seek medical advice through telephone triage call systems. It is important to understand if patients follow telephone triage recommendations and what proportion of triage calls result in subsequent concussion diagnosis. We used a one-year retrospective cohort of triage calls screened with the Barton Schmitt Pediatric Head Injury Telephone Triage Protocol. The objectives were to estimate the proportion who followed up with urgent recommendations to see a provider and determine prevalence of diagnoses of concussion. Out of 2,454 calls with recommendations to be seen urgently, the estimated proportion of being seen in the medical home network or an outside health care facility was 84.1%. Estimated overall diagnoses of concussion among those who were seen was 39.5%. These data can be used to improve patient education and follow-up, as well as the utility of the telephone triage system.
ISSN:1054-7738
1552-3799
DOI:10.1177/1054773820924572