Journal of advanced nursing
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Comparative Study
An evaluation of the safety and effectiveness of telephone triage as a method of patient prioritization in an ophthalmic accident and emergency service.
Service changes in the accident and emergency service at Manchester Royal Eye Hospital in England resulted in a telephone triage-based referral service for health care professionals. It became clear that this service needed evaluation in order to assure both providers and users of the service that this referral strategy, based on experienced nurse practitioners making decisions about patient priority, was safe and effective. The evaluation was extended to encompass the other area of the service where telephone referrals tend to be directly from patients. ⋯ The decisions made to deny urgent appointments to a number of patients were safe in all cases. It appears that one of the problem areas in the gathering of information for prioritization purposes is in the nurses' telephone triage discussions with some, but by no means all, doctors. Some general practitioners seemed unwilling to discuss the patient and give accurate information to a nurse and this is an area which appears to need some further work.
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Recent surveys show that children are still restricted from visiting their critically ill family and friends on many adult intensive care units throughout the country. The purpose of this small-scale exploratory pilot study was to examine and describe the experiences and perceptions of trained nurses towards children visiting within this setting. The aim of the study was to gain greater insight and understanding into the reason why, despite evidence to support the benefits to children of visiting their critically ill family and friends, they remain discouraged and restricted. ⋯ To provide family-centred care within an adult intensive care setting has many implications for practice and several of these important issues are discussed. These include the educational and training needs of nursing staff and the importance of adopting a collaborative team approach to providing care for the critically ill person and their family. The need to generate research and literature from within the United Kingdom's health care system has also been identified and recommendations for further studies are proposed.