Journal Article

Identification of emergencies in the telephone queue and routing to a fast track (FAST): study protocol for a prospective, two-armed cohort study

von Stillfried, Dominik, Carnarius, Sebastian, Weller, Lisa, Herrmann, Tobias, Weidlich-Wichmann, Uta, Dietsch, Tanja, Eichler, Sarah, Alix, Nicolas, Pollmann, Thorsten, Vissiennon, Kodjo, Pommerenke, Christopher, Kroll, Lars

2024

Overview

Background In Germany, the telephone patient service 116,117 for callers with non-life-threatening health issues is available 24/7. Based on structured initial assessment, urgency and placement of suitable medical care offer have been offered since 2020. The service has been in increasing demand for several years: Depending on time and residence, this can result in longer waiting times. Methods Prospective, two-armed cohort study with two intervention groups and one control group, alternating between blinding and unblinding for employees of 116,117 regarding prioritization status. Two interventions based on automated voice dialogues (1: Simple self-rating tool, 2: Automated brief query of emergency symptoms). In case of high level of urgency, callers are prioritized. Validation of urgency and need for care is carried out routinely based on structured initial assessment. Discussion By creating and providing a largely reproducible documentation of the implemented solutions for a waiting queue management, the developed approach would be available for comparable projects in the German health care system or in the European context. This potentially leads to a reduction in the use of resources in the development of comparable technical solutions based on automated voice dialogs. Trial registration DRKS00031235, registered on 10th November 2023, https://drks.de/search/de/trial/DRKS00031235 .

• Publisher: BioMed Central,BioMed Central Ltd,Springer Nature B.V,BMC
• Subject: Automation / Cohort analysis / Decision making / Efficiency / Emergencies / Emergency medical care / Fast track / Germany / Health Administration / Health aspects / Health Informatics / Health insurance / Hotlines / Humans / Hypotheses / Identification and classification / Intervention / Mediation / Medical emergencies / Medicine / Medicine & Public Health / Nursing Research / Patient safety / Physicians / Prospective Studies / Public Health / Self evaluation / SmED / Structural initial assessment / Study Protocol / Telephone / Telephone patient service / Telephone services / Triage - methods / Usability / Waiting Lists / Waiting queue management