Triage protocols

It depends on the patient population you are dealing with. You would use different protocols for adults than you would kids.

This would be in the older (age 50 and over) adult population. What I am looking for is some direction concerning what protocols/program we could purchase that are considered best practices/standard of care. There are so many out there that it is hard to begin to sort through what is good or not as good.

I do triage in my job - my population are older adults and adults with multiple chronic/complex conditions.

I use the telephone triage book by Briggs. It is very complete and easy to use. For protocols that are not found in Briggs - and are common concerns (mostly my renal and liver patients) I have standard protocols that have been designed and approved by our specialist.

Hope this helps - I love doing telephone triage.

Thank you Magsmom.

Schmitt and Thompson have adult and pecs guidelines ad protocols.

We use Schmitt and Thompson for peds and adults. Both sets of protocols are available.

I've heard good things about Briggs as well.

I can suggest you go to Amazon and search for telephone triage. To my knowledge, no specific guidelines have been proven to be reliable and valid by independent research. Use of the term "gold standard" is not proof of validity and reliability.