Can telephone triage in primary care help in earlier diagnosis of cancer?

摘要

Aims: One of the main focus points in General Practice is to identify symptoms and signs of cancers for early diagnosis to improveoutcomes. Our study aims to assess if telephone triage helped in prioritising early assessment and referral of patients who were diagnosedwith a cancer.Methods: A retrospective study of first presentation of patients to primary care who were subsequently diagnosed with a cancer. Patientshad an option to speak to a triaging clinician for the same day appointment or book next available appointment. An analysis is performedon these 2 groups to assess if there is difference in time between the first contact with GP practice and clinic assessment in 1) Primary Careand 2) Secondary care.Results: 39 patients were included in the study. Among them, 13 (33%) used telephone triage to make their appointments and 26(67%) booked their appointment by themselves. The average waiting time required for assessment in GP clinic (primary care) was 0.77days for triaged patients and the average time required for rest of the patients was 7.88 days. The results of Wilcoxon rank-sum testindicated that this was a statistically significant difference in time (p = 0.0020). The average waiting time till face to face appointment insecondary care was 19.54 days for triaged patients and 35.69 days for the rest. The results of Wilcoxon rank-sum test indicated that thiswas a statistically significant difference in time. (p = 0.0474).Conclusion: Our study demonstrated that telephone triage reduced the time from the first primary care contact to face to face assessmentsin primary and secondary care. Telephone triage should not only be seen as a way of managing demands and appointments but also as asystem to improve patient outcome.