Pediatric Telephone Protocols

Medical offices provide triage telephone services to parents seeking advice about their children's symptoms. Health care professionals rely on medical guidelines known as pediatric telephone protocols to guide them through these phone conversations. A nurse browses through the computerized resources as she speaks with each parent. She assesses the severity of a child's condition and researches next steps, such as going to an emergency room or administering over-the-counter treatments.

Categories

• Pediatric protocols cover a long list of conditions among children, such as teething, umbilical cord problems and rashes. Guidelines are comprehensive enough to incorporate 99 percent of potential symptom calls and are backed up by research, according to LVM Systems that provides medical call centers with database protocols. Each potential question requires specific advice. Otherwise, a nurse wastes time searching for answers and sometimes feels pressured to create advice on her own. The risk of miscommunication escalates when protocols are not succinct.

Urgency

• Children's ages and severity of symptoms determine whether a case warrants immediate medical attention. For example, colds represent the most common complaints, according to Nurse Zone. Protocols recommend prompt attention for any cold symptoms in babies younger than 1 month. Other urgent cases include difficulty breathing in an infant under 12 months or a fever in a 1- or 2-month old, says Migrant Clinician website that publishes protocols for mobile low-income communities. Protocols tell staff to be mindful of any reports of weakness or listlessness, regardless of age.

Waiting

• Protocols indicate cases when a parent should wait 24 hours before seeking medical attention. For upper respiratory complaints among children, that waiting period applies to children who experience visible ear drainage, a persistent cough, or a sore throat without any rash for two days, according to Migrant Clinician. A fever for more than two days also falls into this wait-and-see category, but only if the child is older than 2 months.

Remedies

• Pediatric telephone protocols recommend home remedies in instances where the triage nurse rules out any symptoms requiring ER care or a follow-up call after 24 hours of observation. For example, with children's cold symptoms, the nurse suggests home care only if the parent answers "no" to a list of indications and the pediatric patient demonstrates mild symptoms. Home treatments include acetaminophen, vaporizers and rest. Protocols list conditions that require parents to call back after using at-home preparations, such as symptoms that linger after seven days.

Unusual

• Nurse Zone says triage personnel typically field calls about sniffles and sore throats. But sometimes the staff receives an odd complaint, such as a nurse in San Antonio, Texas, who assisted a mother when her toddler suffered a turtle bite. The hospital's computerized protocol software referenced cat and dog bites but carried no information on hostile reptiles. A standard protocol on animal bites advised immediate treatment to ward off infection, which led the nurse to suggest the mother take her child to the ER.