Important notice regarding Swine Flu

A new Pandemic Influenza algorithm has been added to the Nightingale Teleguide package. This new algorithm targets the specific symptoms of pandemic influenza including Swine Flu and Avian Flu.

The algorithm supports the clinician in their telephonic assessment to arrive at a safe level of care for each patient.

Since the outbreak of "Swine Flu", the number of patients calling help lines, out of hours services, urgent care centres etc have increased dramatically with patients presenting with flu like symptoms. The Nightingale Teleguide algorithm will ensure all patients are dealt with safely and effectively and ensuring call times are kept to efficient safe levels.

Please contact us for any further information:
Email: info@nightingaleteleguides.ie
Telephone: +353 86 8867607

What are the Nightingale Teleguides?

The Nightingale Teleguides are an algorithm-based clinical decision support software (CDSS) tool that have been specifically designed for telephone triage and to meet the needs of out of hours providers. The algorithms are a set of symptom based, age and gender specific clinical algorithms, which enable the right person to reach the right level of care at the right time. The use of an algorithmic solution enables high quality healthcare to be provided in a consistent and timely manner.

CDSS ensures that clinicians are presented with the clinical knowledge relating to a specific patient at the appropriate time to enhance patient care.

The Nightingale Teleguides have been designed to achieve high-quality medical practice while reducing errors and providing consistency of process. The Nightingale Teleguides are designed to:

• Support the decision maker
• Be patient and symptom specific
• Be provider specific (scope of practice: GP and nurses)
• Affect decisions
• Combine user knowledge with context specific data

Who are the Nightingale Teleguides for?

The Nightingale Teleguides are designed for GP Co-operative Out-of-Hours services, Ambulance services, Urgent Care facilities and Minor Injuries Units.

Why use the Nightingale Teleguides?

Telephone triage assessment is not face to face and therefore cannot be diagnostic. The basic aims are of telephone triage are to establish does a patient need to be seen or advised? If the patient needs to be advised, that advice is evidence based. If the patient needs to be seen: Where, by whom & how urgently? The Nightingale Teleguides underpin the triage assessment to ensure safety and consistency by providing context specific evidence based advice.

Approximately 33% of calls to out-of-hours GP co-operatives are completed by nurse advice and reassurance. Main conditions advised:

• Minor childhood illnesses
• Vomiting / Diarrhoea
• Fever
• Minor cuts and bruises
• Cough
• Eye problems
• Throat symptoms
• Post vaccination advice
• Ear pain

The Nightingale Teleguides are designed and are customisable to suit the availability of unscheduled care providers located in countries around the world. Some Sample Levels of Care available to telephone triage nurses are:

• 999
• A & E and Hospital Referral
• Calls passed to Duty Doctor
• Emergency Consultation
• Urgent Consultation
• Routine Scheduled Appointment
• Doctor Advice
• Patient to make appointment with own GP within 4 hours
• Patient to make appointment with own GP within 1 to 3 days
• Nurse advice given according to documented home care treatment

The Nightingale Teleguides contain all customisable content including:

• The algorithm question itself
• The algorithm flow
• The self-care instructions
• And most importantly the end-points, which ensure that the dispositions created are appropriate for each service.

Key facts & Figures

• Average call lengths have been proven to be less than half of competitors products.
• Over 11 million calls have been taken worldwide using the Nightingale Teleguides, with no adverse outcomes
• Approximately 150,000 calls worldwide are managed by using the Nightingale Teleguides each week