Rural healthcare provider opinions about implementation of an after-hours rural telephone triage system.

We would like to draw your readers’ attention to a small study investigating the use of a telephone triage system to improve after-hours access to healthcare services. We conducted the trial in Kerang District Hospital (KDH), located in the rural Loddon Mallee region of Northern Victoria, Australia. KDH serves 10 000 people in several districts with six GPs (ratio of 0.6/10,000 people vs Melbourne’s 10.6/10,000) 1 . With the doctor shortage and no after-hours care, KDH sought to improve healthcare access by adapting and implementing the WestVic telephone triage system 2 in 2005. This project, which evaluated staff opinions about the system 8 months later, was a joint effort between KDH staff and The University of Melbourne medical students who were undertaking a required rural experience course.