Reality Check. How many calls do you triage?

Specialties Triage

Published

My part-time job employer went through some job evaluation and redesign. For 52 calls in a 7 hour period, there were three RNs. Does that sound right? After 7 hours and 28 calls, I was ready to throw in the towel. I'm curious what everyone else does. We are the after-hours triage for patients who are calling their physicians for advice, medications, problems, etc. Thanks for your info!

So I'll start by saying I work for a pediatric center-I'm in the after hours location and we triage for 4 practices. On a given weekend (16 hours of phone calls) we (meaning me and 1 other nurse that is there in the AM only both days) do approximately 600 calls. Not sure what that divides into, but most calls go like this:

Hi this is ........ with ........, what's going on with ........? Mom or dad says ......has sore throat and fever for 2 days. Okay can you come to the .......location at .......and see dr......? Some are a little more detailed if they don't qualify for an after hours appointment and we have to give them advice and get them to understand their little one will be fine until Monday morning.

Specializes in Med-Surg, Peds.

Today I worked 9 hours, took 40 calls, and started/managed one IV. Too busy, but the types of calls (only a few were really complex) honestly allowed it to be doable. My preferred day is about 25 calls. The one time I had 50+ messages to take care of by myself I felt like patient care was very much being compromised.

Specializes in ER, Psych, Telephone Triage.

We are required to do 4 calls per hour in max time of 12 minutes

I usually triage 6-8 calls an hour. Right now thanks to swine flu and scared parents I can triage up to 15. I've been doing this for a few years, so I've pretty much go it down. I can comfortably (without getting behind) triage 8-10 calls an hour.

Specializes in Case Managemenet.

We are strongly encouraged to be able to take on average 4 calls an hour. I think it averages out okay. Some calls are just a couple of minutes and others take much longer especially when I have to wait for the doc to call me back. Worse day I took 44 calls in a 12 hour shift. That means I was always busy.

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