Standard nurse phone triage versus tele-emergency care pilot on Veteran use of in-person acute care: An instrumental variable analysis.

ABSTRACT:

Objectives

Use of acute care telemedicine is growing, but data on quality, utilization, and cost are limited. We evaluated a Veterans Affairs (VA) tele-emergency care (tele-EC) pilot aimed at reducing reliance on out-of-network (OON) emergency department (ED) care, a growing portion of VA spending. With this service, an emergency physician virtually evaluated selected Veterans calling a nurse triage line.

Methods

Calls to the triage line occurring January-December 2021 and advised to seek care acutely within 24 h were included. We described tele-EC user characteristics, common triage complaints, and patterns in referral to and management by tele-EC. The primary outcome was acute care visits (ED, urgent care, and hospitalizations at VA and OON sites) within 7 days of the inde

SUBMITTER: Li KY 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10162445 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature