The overall implications of the study are positive, so long as there is already an established trust between the patient and the general practice clinic, according to Dr. Garey Mazowita, a family practice physician in Vancouver, B.C., who is participating in a telephone screening program for general practitioners in his home province.
“At the heart of the medical home model we are moving toward is the continuity of the relationship between the family care doctor and the patient, and the knowledge that if you do something over the phone that averts an office visit, you’ve still got the security of the relationship [to rely on],” Dr. Mazowita, who is also the president of the College of Family Physicians of Canada, said in an interview. “We think it’s fundamentally safer than if no relationship exists.”
Ms. Varley agreed that how general practice clinics, and in particular, the physicians, related to patients overall was important, but said that for the purpose of nurse-led call screening, it was important to note that while all triage call screening was shown in the study to be comparably safe, “the individual characteristics of nurses independently influenced how telephone triage was implemented.”
Neither Ms. Varley nor Dr. Mazowita had any relevant disclosures.
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