Assessing the Impact of a Call Center Providing Standardized Pediatric Advice (PLATEL-EVAL)

Plain-language summary

In order to show that tailored pediatric counselling by telephone can reduce the number of unscheduled and medically unjustified physicians visits in emergency structures, a randomized controlled study is conducted. It compares the proportion of cases which used the emergency services or unscheduled consultation according to whether they received (or not) nurses' telephone advices from the platform. Indeed, our hypothesis is that the presence of nurses responding at the Reception and Control Calls Center inside the Emergency Medical Services (in french : Service d'Aide Médicale d'Urgence SAMU) - whose role is to deliver appropriate advice to people calling for benign pathologies they see as urgent and to answer questions following specific recommendations - will reduce the number of unplanned and medically unjustified consultations in medical emergency structures. This platform was set-up in order to show it may be a solution in response to the growing demand for pediatric care from the population, helping to reduce overcrowding in emergency care facilities. Indeed, promoting home care or only if necessary scheduled consultation reinforces the conduct to have when facing a pathology from their child. It will also help by reducing unjustified use of emergency structures, improving not only the users' reception conditions who actually require support in these structures with less waiting time, but also the working conditions for employees who perform there.

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