Capturing accurate and useful information on medication-related telenursing triage calls

R. Lake, L. Li, M. Baysari, M. Byrne, M. Robinson, Ji Westbrook

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Abstract

Registered nurses providing telenursing triage and advice services record information on the medication related calls they handle. However the quality and consistency of these data were rarely examined. Our aim was to examine medication related calls made to the healthdirect advice service in November 2014, to assess their basic characteristics and how the data entry format influenced information collected and data consistency. Registered nurses selected the patient question type from a range of categories, and entered the medications involved in a free text field. Medication names were manually extracted from the free text fields. We also compared the selected patient question type with the free text description of the call, in order to gauge data consistency. Results showed that nurses provided patients with advice on medication-related queries in a timely matter (the median call duration of 9 minutes). From 1835 calls, we were able to identify and classify 2156 medications into 384 generic names. However, in 204 cases (11.2% of calls) no medication name was entered. A further 308 (15.0%) of the medication names entered were not identifiable. When we compared the selected patient question with the free text description of calls, we found that these were consistent in 63.27% of cases. Telenursing and triage advice services provide a valuable resource to the public with quick and easily accessible advice. To support nurses provide quality services and record accurate information about the queries, appropriate data entry format and design would be beneficial.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationDigital Health Innovation for Consumers, Clinicians, Connectivity and Community
Subtitle of host publicationSelected Papers from the 24th Australian National Health Informatics Conference, HIC 2016
EditorsAndrew Georgiou, Louise K. Schaper, Sue Whetton
Place of PublicationAmsterdam
PublisherIOS Press
Pages74-79
Number of pages6
Volume227
ISBN (Electronic)9781614996668
ISBN (Print)9781614996651
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2016
Event24th Australian National Health Informatics Conference, HIC 2016 - Melbourne, Australia
Duration: 25 Jul 201627 Jul 2016

Publication series

NameStudies in Health Technology and Informatics
Volume227
ISSN (Print)0926-9630
ISSN (Electronic)1879-8365

Other

Other24th Australian National Health Informatics Conference, HIC 2016
Country/TerritoryAustralia
CityMelbourne
Period25/07/1627/07/16

Bibliographical note

Copyright the Author(s) and IOS Press 2016. Version archived for private and non-commercial use with the permission of the author/s and according to publisher conditions. For further rights please contact the publisher.

Keywords

  • Advice
  • Data Entry
  • Data Quality And Consistency
  • Medication
  • Telehealth
  • Telenursing

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