Telephone and hot lines: a tool delivering clinical care
Chiari, G.; Vanelli, M.
Acta Bio-Medica Atenei Parmensis 76(Suppl 3): 75-80
2005
ISSN/ISBN: 0392-4203 PMID: 16915804 Document Number: 588278
Telephone lines are now a widespread way of communication between patients and physicians. Nevertheless opinions about their effectiveness and efficacy are rather inconsistent. Aim of this study is to review medical literature in order to assess how and when telephone lines have been described as a good or a bad way to help health care, looking for different experiences and opinions, reviews and guidelines about the use of telephone as a tool for delivering health care. We compared what we have found, particularly about Diabetes, with our previous experience. Medline from Pub Med from National Library of Medicine has been consulted using "telephone", "hot line" or "hotline" as key words. Among the 20 thousands references found in the literature, 2051 of them we considered relevant. The most frequently recurrent topics concern pediatrics (19.2%), while diabetes is not very frequent (0.6%). Analyzing more in details, we noticed that the application fields ofhotlines are emergency management, secretary tasks, preventive health care, acute episodes and chronic conditions. Different models of telephone help lines and guidelines in training and running help lines have been found as well. Examining diabetes help lines, we noticed that they are mainly used in case of intercurrent illness, doubts about insulin dose, hypoglycemia. Parents of the youngest patients and with the shortest duration of diabetes are the most frequent users, regardless of HbA1c. Most calls came during holy-days and weekend, especially early in the morning or during the night.