• Petri Roivainen, Marko J Hoikka, Lasse Raatiniemi, Tom Silfvast, Tero Ala-Kokko, and Maria Kääriäinen.
• Research Unit of Nursing Science and Health Management, University of Oulu, Oulu, Finland.
• Acta Anaesthesiol Scand. 2020 Apr 1; 64 (4): 556-563.

BackgroundThe increased workload in emergency medical services (EMS) is a global phenomenon in welfare states. It has been suggested that telephone triage by nurses may reduce the increasing use of EMS services, by directing patient flow to appropriate care. This study aimed to investigate whether, after an emergency medical communication centre (EMCC) provider assessed risk, a telephone nurse could assess the patient's needs and guide patients to social and health care services in non-urgent cases.MethodsThis prospective observational study was performed in the Kainuu Hospital District in northern Finland from March to April 2018. All EMS requests classified as non-urgent by the EMCC were transferred to a telephone triage nurse. Subsequent patient guidance was recorded. The International Classifications of Primary Care categories were recorded.ResultsWe studied phone calls of 700 patients with non-urgent needs. Of these, the nurse transferred 63.7% to EMS and 17.3% were guided to other social and health care services. Nineteen per cent of the calls were handled over the phone by the nurse, who provided health advice and instructions. The most common needs for care were general and unspecified symptoms, musculoskeletal symptoms, mental health problems and substance abuse.ConclusionBy providing telephone counseling, care instructions and patient guidance to other social and health services than EMS, the telephone triage reduced non-urgent EMS missions by one third. The results imply that telephone triage could be a viable model for managing non-urgent missions. Patient safety issues should be monitored when developing new service concepts.© 2020 The Acta Anaesthesiologica Scandinavica Foundation. Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

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