PHONE NURSE CONSULTANCY IN THE PAEDIATRIC EMERGENCY UNIT: EXPERIENCES AND PERSPECTIVES

Key words: Telephone nursing consultancy, Paediatric Emergency Unit, Information request

Background - In the Paediatric Emergency Unit phone nursing consultancy represents an important reference point for the users in case of acute situations and at the same time enables to filter requests. Aim - The present work analyses and evaluates the work burden connected with the activity of telephone nursing consultancy by identifying the reasons that most frequently make the users call the Paediatric Emergency Unit and by defining juridical liabilities. Materials and Methods - For each phone call the general data concerning the child, the output of the phone call and its duration as well as the operator have been recorded in a form. The phone calls have been divided into consultancy and information request. The descriptive perspective study was carried out from May to September 2007. Results - The total number of phone calls was 7,813 of which 5,874 consultancies and 1,939 information requests. The most frequent symptom was fever followed by cutaneous eruption and accidents. Conclusion - Since 75% of the phone calls almost always concerns the same symptoms, it would be useful to draw up protocols for the most frequent questions in order optimize the whole procedure.