Telephone Triage for Oncology Nurses

Use the symptom-focused telephone protocols or guidelines provided by your colleagues working in outpatient settings across the U.S. as you develop your own telephone triage skills, guidelines, and protocols. As the care of patients with cancer has shifted from the inpatient arena to the outpatient setting in the past decade, the traditional role of the nurse has been challenged. Nurses both in outpatient clinics and physicians' offices have frequently found themselves performing assessments and providing triage and advice over the telephone. Office triage nurses must be knowledgeable about the patient, be experienced in the nursing specialty, and possess good interviewing and telephone assessment skills. This text is designed to be a resource for oncology nurses who are learning the telephone nursing role as well as a guide for the expert who is developing a formalized telephone nursing practice in his or her work setting. Chapters in this new publication provide a systematic approach to performing a telephone nursing assessment, discussion of telephone triage practice models, tips to improve telephone communication, and a history of telephone triage. Symptom-focused telephone protocols and guidelines are included to help direct oncology nurses in the development of guidelines in their practice. These telephone protocols serve as a guide for oncology nurses to meet the specific needs of their patient population. Oncology nurses from across the U.S. have contributed these protocols in an effort to help other oncology nurses and to improve patient care.