Description:
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<jats:title>INTRODUCTION:</jats:title>
<jats:p>Obstetric telephone triage is commonly used when patients call with questions or seek advice for various medical concerns. Prompt and accurate telephone triage is imperative to ensure high quality and accessible care while maintaining healthcare efficiency. We sought to determine the current accuracy of obstetric telephone triage on a labor and delivery unit compared to a standardized obstetric telephone triage call center.</jats:p>
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<jats:title>METHODS:</jats:title>
<jats:p>This is an approved quality improvement project. We collected telephone triage logs for patients calling Labor and Delivery. Calls were reviewed by experienced nurses from the ANGELS call center at the University of Arkansas using standardized obstetric triage algorithms. Differences were categorized by concordant advice vs. discordant advice/less urgent and discordant advice/more urgent.</jats:p>
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<jats:title>RESULTS:</jats:title>
<jats:p>We reviewed 101 calls over a 3 month period. 55% were >34 weeks, 27% were 20-34 weeks, and 2% were <20 weeks gestational age. Caller complaints included: contractions (38%), discharge/bleeding (10%), leaking fluid (10%), decreased fetal movement (6%), fever/nausea/vomiting/diarrhea (4%), and other complaints (30%). Of these calls, 80% (n = 81) were assessed with concordant advice. Of the discordant advice calls, 9% (n = 9) were less urgent, and 8% (n = 8) were more urgent. Three records (3%) were not marked with a disposition in the telephone triage log book.</jats:p>
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<jats:title>CONCLUSION:</jats:title>
<jats:p>In an L&D setting, 80% of documented telephone triage advice was concordant with standardized telephone triage protocols. This presents opportunity for education and standardized obstetric telephone triage protocols to improve patient care.</jats:p>
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