Reducing after-hours prescription refill requests

Reducing after-hours referrals by an after-hours call center with second-level physician triage.

OBJECTIVES One-third of practices signing-out to The Children's Hospital Call Center in Denver, Colorado, choose to do second-level physician (SLP) triage for calls judged by the Center to require after-hours referral (AHR). We examined: 1) the effect of SLP triage on the rate of AHRs and 2) reasons for physicians' decisions. DESIGN From January 1998 to August 1998 all calls from patients usi...

A competing risks prescription refill model of compliance and persistence.

OBJECTIVES There is evidence to suggest that noncompliant and nonpersistent behaviors have differing risk factors, clinical consequences, and responses to intervention. This has led to calls for these behaviors to be defined and measured separately to characterize medication-taking behavior comprehensively. Current prescription refill models of compliance are, however, unable to appropriately d...

PRACTICE MANAGEMENT Reducing After-Hours Referrals by an After-Hours Call Center With Second-Level Physician Triage

Objectives. One-third of practices signingout to The Children’s Hospital Call Center in Denver, Colorado, choose to do second-level physician (SLP) triage for calls judged by the Center to require after-hours referral (AHR). We examined: 1) the effect of SLP triage on the rate of AHRs and 2) reasons for physicians’ decisions. Design. From January 1998 to August 1998 all calls from patients usin...

Rational restriction of out of hours requests for haematology tests.

Increasing access to emergency contraception through online prescription requests.

OBJECTIVE To describe a pilot program, Plan B Online Prescription Access, to provide easy access to prescriptions for emergency contraception via the Internet. STUDY DESIGN We measured electronic prescriptions for Plan B (Duramed Pharmaceuticals, Cincinnati, Ohio) by month over time. Pharmacists faxed patient-generated prescriptions back to the Department of Public Health for confirmation. ...