Survey of Primary Care Offices: Triage of Poisoning Calls

Austin, Travis

dc.contributor.author	Austin, Travis
dc.date.accessioned	2013-04-12T20:49:26Z
dc.date.available	2013-04-12T20:49:26Z
dc.date.issued	2013-03
dc.identifier.uri	http://hdl.handle.net/10150/281132
dc.description	A Thesis submitted to The University of Arizona College of Medicine - Phoenix in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Medicine.	en
dc.description.abstract	Poison control centers hold great potential for saving health care resources particularly by preventing unnecessary medical utilization. We developed a four-question survey with three poisoning-related scenarios, based on common calls to our poison center, and one question regarding after-hours calls. We identified primary care provider offices in our poison center's region from an internet search. We contacted these offices via telephone and asked to speak to an office manager or someone responsible for triaging patient phone queries. Using a scripted form, trained investigators questioned 100 consecutive primary care provider offices on how they would handle these poisoning-related calls if there was no poison center available for patient referral. It was hypothesized that a substantial proportion of these poisoning-related calls would be triaged to 911 or an emergency department. Results of our survey suggest that 82.5% of poisoning-related calls to primary care offices would be referred to 911 or an emergency department if there was no poison center. These results further support the role that poison centers play in patient care and health care utilization.
dc.language.iso	en_US	en
dc.publisher	The University of Arizona.	en_US
dc.rights	Copyright © is held by the author. Digital access to this material is made possible by the College of Medicine - Phoenix, University of Arizona. Further transmission, reproduction or presentation (such as public display or performance) of protected items is prohibited except with permission of the author.	en_US
dc.subject.mesh	Poison control centers	en
dc.title	Survey of Primary Care Offices: Triage of Poisoning Calls	en_US
dc.type	text; Electronic Thesis	en
dc.contributor.department	The University of Arizona College of Medicine - Phoenix	en
dc.description.collectioninformation	This item is part of the College of Medicine - Phoenix Scholarly Projects 2013 collection. For more information, contact the Phoenix Biomedical Campus Library at pbc-library@email.arizona.edu.	en_US
dc.contributor.mentor	Brooks, Daniel	en
refterms.dateFOA	2018-06-18T09:19:03Z
html.description.abstract	Poison control centers hold great potential for saving health care resources particularly by preventing unnecessary medical utilization. We developed a four-question survey with three poisoning-related scenarios, based on common calls to our poison center, and one question regarding after-hours calls. We identified primary care provider offices in our poison center's region from an internet search. We contacted these offices via telephone and asked to speak to an office manager or someone responsible for triaging patient phone queries. Using a scripted form, trained investigators questioned 100 consecutive primary care provider offices on how they would handle these poisoning-related calls if there was no poison center available for patient referral. It was hypothesized that a substantial proportion of these poisoning-related calls would be triaged to 911 or an emergency department. Results of our survey suggest that 82.5% of poisoning-related calls to primary care offices would be referred to 911 or an emergency department if there was no poison center. These results further support the role that poison centers play in patient care and health care utilization.