RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Recorded infection control messages delay inter-professional communication but are not associated with COVID-19 prevalence or mortality: insights from a national switchboard analysis
JF Clinical Medicine
JO Clin Med
FD Royal College of Physicians
SP e160
OP e162
DO 10.7861/clinmed.2020-0438
VO 20
IS 5
A1 Edd Maclean
A1 Rahul Ghelani
A1 Myra Adra
A1 Anshu Arora
A1 Prasheena Naran
A1 Heather Illing
A1 Megan Knight
A1 Sophie Banerjee
A1 Sam Myers
A1 Joanna Brecher
A1 Sarah Anderson
A1 Charlotte Aylward
A1 Harmit Bindra
A1 Christine Carter
A1 Naim Dib
A1 Laura Ganis
A1 David Saliu
A1 Andrew Towler-Tinlin
A1 Doaa Rajab Kerwat
A1 Eleanor Richards
A1 James Noble Johnston
A1 Barney Low
YR 2020
UL http://www.rcpjournals.org/content/20/5/e160.abstract
AB Appropriate dissemination of information to the general public is a key component of the pandemic response. In 2018, recorded infection control advice messages were affixed to 30% of England's automated hospital switchboards during the seasonal influenza and norovirus outbreaks. As the majority of messages were mandatory for all callers, healthcare professionals using the hospital switchboard – including during time-critical emergencies – had their enquiries significantly delayed by these measures. Importantly, published analyses did not demonstrate an association between these messages and patient outcomes. As of May 2020, 85% of NHS trusts made use of infection control messages; on average, these delayed healthcare professionals by 59.4 seconds per call, but had no clear association with patient outcomes from COVID-19. An ongoing national switchboard quality improvement project seeks to establish a gold standard whereby healthcare professionals with urgent enquiries can press ‘X’ to skip past infection control messages and have their calls triaged immediately.