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TopBackground
For many, working in new ways such as those associated with connected health, e-health, telehealth, telemedicine and in this instance telephone triage, can require the development of new attitudes, knowledge and skills. In such contexts, Mair (2012) identified that often not enough attention is paid to these new roles and the associated responsibilities in terms of the management of risk. Staff training and continuing development programmes need to be restructured in order to enable the development of competencies required for such roles and new ways of working within telehealth and telemedicine (Giordano et al, 2011). The skills and past experience of staff entering these roles may differ greatly and consequently effect training and competence development requirements (Wilson & Tyler, 2011). Whilst there is a drive towards integration of connected health and health informatics modules within both clinical and nursing degree courses (Bogen et al, 2010) training for new service set up requires specific consideration of a variety of contextual issues that are explicit to the new service and those that will work within it.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Health Information Call: The caller requests health information (has no new or worsening symptoms).
Physician Referral Call: The caller requests referral to a physician.
Constructivist Learning: Social learning approach whereby learners are able to develop new knowledge and construct their own meaning in order to make sense of it and use it in new situations.
Learning/Training Transfer: The application of knowledge, skills and attitudes learned during training to the workplace.
Level 3 Evaluation: An evaluation of learning/training transfer in the workplace.
Symptom Based Call: The caller presents with symptoms that require triage.
Reflection: Thinking about an action or experience in a structured manner and learning from it.
Level of Care: The level of care recommended following triage based on time within which to seek medical attention.
Telephone Triage: Assessment of caller symptoms by telephone in order to determine and recommend appropriate level of care required.