Telephone-Based Triage After Pediatric Tonsillectomy: A Retrospective Analysis.
Telephone triage managed 91.5% of callers without emergency department referral.
Telephone-Based Triage After Pediatric Tonsillectomy: A Retrospective Analysis.
To describe posttonsillectomy telephone triage utilization and short-term outcomes in a single tertiary pediatric system.
Tertiary care children's hospital.
phone follow-up avoided an emergency department visit for most callers
Among 12,167 patients, 2483 (20.4%) contacted telephone triage within 30 days.
Of bleeding related calls, 111 (66.9%) were managed without emergency department referral, and 41/60 (68.3%) patients referred to the emergency department did not require surgical intervention.
Patients utilizing telephone-based triage were more likely to have Medicaid insurance ( P < .001) and live in high-disadvantage neighborhoods ( P < .001).
Telephone-based triage is an effective measure to help reduce emergency department visits for pediatric posttonsillectomy patients.
The majority of patients who utilized telephone-based triage were successfully managed at home across all types of complications. There is a potential $158,000 to $360,000 in healthcare savings seen after implementing this program.
High-disadvantage patients were more likely to use telephone-based triage but achieved similar outcomes to low-disadvantaged peers.