home health triage guidelines - help!!

[caringRN]

What type of guidelines does your agencies use for the on call home health nurse? I am trying to get evidence-based guidelines for our agency (where we currently have none and each nurse is just using their better judgement for triaging). I am open for any and all suggestions. Thanks

[renerian, BSN, RN]

I have always used a common sense approach and P& P to triage calls. Some things by policy require a visit, or a Dr. call (again following P&P) some don't . I have never seen evidence based on call triage studies but something like that could be out there....

You can also modify your triage by evaluating your home health compare statistics, OASIS data elements, OBQI data, hospitalization rates and caustive factors etc. I am sure your outcomes employee at your agency can shed light on why people get urgent care and whittle away at the data to update your P&P on triage to address the data needs. Make sense?

renerian

[NRSKarenRN, BSN, RN]

Follow renerian , we follow agency policy and procedure along with common sense/on the job learning for triaging calls. Our staff rarely go out evening as most things can wait till next day. What works for a city agency, might not be best for country based agency.

Do think this is a weakness for most agencies. With focus on reducing emergent care admissions, see this as an issue being kicked to top of our agency "to do" list.