Monitoring activities in out-of-hours emergency primary care in Norway. A special emphasis on nurses telephone triage and counselling
Abstract
The main aim of this thesis has been to develop and establish an organisation, the Watchtowers, in order to continuously collect valid data from the OOH services in Norway, and to describe the activities. Further, we have investigated how nurses decide the grade on urgency of patients, if callers to LEMCs understand the advices given by nurses, and the outcome of the patients after advice. The municipalities in Norway are by law responsible for all the inhabitants regarding primary health care and emergency medical services [1]. The law requires that the services should be safe, but the purpose and content of the services is not statutory. It is therefore, up to each municipality to decide the quality, manning requirement, competence and the content of the services.
Has parts
Paper I: Hansen E, H, Hunskaar S. Development, implementation, and pilot study of a sentinel network ("The Watchtowers") for monitoring emergency primary health care activity in Norway. BMC Health Services Research 2008, 8:62. The article is available at: http://hdl.handle.net/1956/5382Paper II: Hansen E, H, Zakariassen E, Hunskaar S. Sentinel monitoring of activity of out-of- hours services in Norway in 2007: an observational study. BMC Health Services Research. 2009, 9:123. The article is available at: http://hdl.handle.net/1956/5383
Paper III: Hansen E, H, Hunskaar S. Telephone triage by nurses in primary care out-of-hours services in Norway: An evaluation study on written case scenarios. BMJ Quality & Safety 2011, 20: 390-396. The article is available at: http://hdl.handle.net/1956/5384
Paper IV: Hansen E, H, Hunskaar S. Understanding of and adherence to advice after telephone counseling by nurse: A survey among callers to a primary emergency out-of- hours service in Norway. Scandinavian Journal of Trauma, Resuscitation and Emergency Medicine 2011, 19:48. The article is available at: http://hdl.handle.net/1956/5385