The out-of-hours and emergency services in Denmark’s capital, Copenhagen, are combined in one organisation, and are accessible via two telephone numbers: 112 for emergency calls and 1813 for less urgent calls.5 The helpline for less urgent calls is available from 4pm to 8am on weekdays and around the clock on weekends and holidays. Telephone triage is used to preassess the need for the caller to access acute medical help.
Annually, the out-of-hours service handles about 1 million calls. Call handlers are nurses or physicians (in either primary or secondary care), who triage the caller to self-care, to their own GP on the next working day, to hospital consultation, to a home visit, or to direct hospitalisation. The call handler’s clinical decision making is guided by a locally developed, criterion-based decision tool (visitor guide, Denmark, Copenhagen, 2011).
How this fits in
Triage tools for non-urgent conditions often do not include the patient’s perspective. Callers to emergency care are able to rate their degree of worry. Degree of worry can be scaled on a continuum from problem focused to emotional coping. Asking callers about self-rated worry seems feasible in order to incorporate patient involvement in urgent-care telephone triage.
