Residency Manual

Appendix S:

Resident Telephone Triage Protocol Policy: University Eye Center offers patients telephone triage for emergency care on holidays, weekends or other times when the center is closed. Procedure: • • After hours, phone calls are answered by the answering service. • • Answering service contacts the telephone triage practitioner providing patient name, date of birth and contact number. • • The telephone triage practitioner contacts the patient and determines the appropriate course of action. Prior to resident emancipation, the supervising attending must be contacted to discuss the case. • • The telephone triage practitioner will make a telephone communication note in the EHR (within 24 hours) that includes the following:  Date/Time of call  Problem  Action Taken  Follow-up needed The supervising attending is responsible for entering the note in the EMR until the resident on call has been emancipated. If the patient is advised to come to the UEC, the Chief and manager of the Service the patient is referred to should be notified via email. Security should be made aware that the patient is expected either via email or a call on the day the patient is expected. **REMEMBER – there is no clinic on Tuesday mornings. If the patient must be seen on Tuesday morning the triage practitioner must make arrangements for the patient to receive care. If the triage provider has an assignment at an outside location, they are responsible for finding another resident/practitioner to provide the care on Tuesday morning** Telephone Triage Assignments and Responsibilities: The Chief Medical Officer of the UEC is responsible for oversight of Emergency Telephone Triage. The Chief Medical officer (or their designee) will create the Telephone Triage Schedule and monitor emergency care activities. Any issues or problems encountered during telephone triage should be brought to the attention of the Chief Medical Officer as soon as possible. Telephone triage assignments are one week rotations, beginning and ending at noon on the day/dates specified. (Specific day of the week may be subject to change). The UEC will provide a cellular phone which the resident assigned to telephone triage will use to receive and respond to emergency calls. The phone must be on and available for calls from 6pm through 8am every day except Tuesday. On Tuesday, the phone must be on and available from 6pm Monday night until 11am Tuesday morning. If there are any emergency calls that require consultation with a provider before clinic hours, the call center will call the resident on call. All SUNY-salaried residents will participate in the phone triage. The telephone triage schedule will be divided as equally as possible amongst all the residents (see attached schedule). A supervising attending (Service Chief, Assistant Service Chief or Section Chief) will be assigned to the resident and will be available for consultation. Both the telephone triage resident and supervising attending must be available by phone at all times during their telephone triage rotation. Consultation with the telephone triage attending must occur for all emergency calls until the resident is emancipated and as needed once emancipated. All information in the electronic health record must be cosigned by the telephone triage attending when the call is taken by the resident when prior to the resident emancipation. Schedule Changes and Coverage: In the event that the telephone triage practitioner (resident and/or attending) is unable to be available for their assignment, it is the individual’s responsibility to find coverage during this period. The resident must find alternate coverage with another resident, and the telephone triage attending must arrange for alternative coverage with one of the other telephone triage attendings. Any changes to the schedule must be communicated to all parties involved (resident, attending).

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