Using Video Transmission for Telephone Triage of Children

Summary

Background

The medical helpline 1813 in Copenhagen, Denmark handles telephone calls regarding non-life-threatening medical emergencies. Next to 200,000 calls/year concern children and afterwards about 30% are referred to a pediatric urgent care center. However, most of these children have very mild symptoms, which do neither require treatment nor any tests, but merely parental medical guidance.

Initial assessment; triage, of children on the telephone is difficult, especially when the operator does not know the child or the parents, and when it is difficult to describe the symptoms in medical terms. This may result in both too many not-so-sick children getting unnecessarily referred to hospitals, and perhaps also too few more severely sick children sent to the hospital.

Purpose

This project will study if triage of children by videocalls (video triage) provide greater security for parents and health care personnel in the decision that more children can stay at home after medical guidance, thus causing at least 10% fewer visits to a pediatric urgent care center.

Furthermore, the investigators will study if video triage identifies more children with the need of urgent admission to a Department of Pediatrics.

Method

Children aged 6 months to 5 years with symptoms from the respiratory tract will be triaged by either video or telephone by an operator every other day, in order to compare the results between these two similar groups. In cases of video triage, the parent will receive a text message to their smartphone with a video link.

The safety of video triage will be assessed by reviewing the hospital case reports of all patients for contact within the 48 hours after the 1813 call.

Perspectives

Video assessment at call centers may "give eyes to the operators" and revolutionize telephone triage. The study may result in fewer children referred to hospitals, more appropriate use of resources and better experiences for the families.

Conditions

• Telemedicine
• Triage
• Respiratory Tract Diseases
• Pediatrics

Interventions

OTHER

Video triage

The operator will offer the parent calling regarding the sick child to assess the child on video, as compared to the current standard; on the telephone.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• Copenhagen University Hospital, Hvidovre

  collaborator OTHER

• Copenhagen University Hospital at Herlev

  collaborator OTHER

• Rigshospitalet, Denmark

  collaborator OTHER

• Copenhagen University Hospital Nordsjælland

  collaborator UNKNOWN

• Copenhagen Academy for Medical Education and Simulation

  collaborator OTHER

• University of Copenhagen

  collaborator OTHER

• TrygFonden, Denmark

  collaborator INDUSTRY

• Amager-Hvidovre Hospital Research Foundation

  collaborator UNKNOWN

• Emergency Medical Services, Capital Region, Denmark

  lead OTHER_GOV

Principal Investigators

• Dina Cortes, MD, DrMedSci · Department of Pediatrics, Copenhagen University Hospital Hvidovre

Study Design

Allocation

NON_RANDOMIZED

Purpose

OTHER

Masking

NONE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age

6 Months

Max Age

5 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

No

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2019-02-25

Primary Completion

2020-03-31

Completion

2020-03-31

Countries

• Denmark

Study Locations