Charting by Exception –Triage Patients Efficiently in Your Medical Call Center
When triaging patients in your medical call center, charting by exception is the most efficient way to ensure that your triage nurses quickly reach the correct protocol. At TriageLogic, we use the gold-standard Schmitt-Thompson protocols and chart by exception based on the author’s recommendation for safe triage care.
Charting by exception is a shorthand method for documenting normal findings. Every nurse is trained to ask every question within the protocol and only click on the “yes” answer. By doing so, the nurse is indicating that all standards and protocols have been followed. Documentation includes the main symptom or chief complaint of the patient and any pertinent negatives. Charting by exception decreases the amount of charting time, thus allowing nurses to focus on the patient and their care.
As Dr. Schmitt, the authors of the protocols note, “Documenting by pertinent positives is safe and permissible because the nurse is following and adhering to a protocol. The protocol is key. Without it, the nurse would need to record pertinent negatives as well. Charting by exception has become the standard of care in medical call centers and offices. It keeps call processing and documentation simple and brief.”
TriageLogic’s Call Center Solution can provide your medical call center with a reliable web-based system to quickly and efficiently triage and document patient calls. Since the Call Center Solution works by charting by exception, patient encounters are documented with minimal typing and conveniently logged for accountability and reporting. However, if your organization prefers to continue documenting every negative response, our platform can be configured to accommodate that workflow as well.
In addition to being able to chart by exception, the medical call center software should also include other features to make the triage process efficient. One such feature in the TriageLogic Call Center Software for example, is the ability for the software to include physician-specific custom orders. For example, do decrease unnecessary calls to physicians, some of our doctors have custom orders to allow nurses to call in prescriptions for thrush or refills on albuterol. Other important features to speed the nurse triage process include automated on-call schedules, and secure texting within the application.
Charting by exception is a great way to ensure that your medical call center is efficiently handling and documenting patient calls in the fastest, safest way possible. In most call centers, including TriageLogic’s nurse triage center, documentation is supplemented by voice recordings, which provide more information about the encounter. The voice recording combined with charting by exception is not only safe and acceptable, but it is a more efficient way for the triage nurse to get her patient to the right level of care.
If your organization is looking for a new, effective platform for your health call center or in need of after-hours nurse triage service for your patients, please contact TriageLogic today.
