FY12 Annual Report - St. John Health System

16
Empowered to Improve the Patient Experience
Caring for kids at St. John Hospital and Medical Center.
Support for parents just a
phone call away
Eastside Pediatrics, an after-hours urgent care
facility for children, invites pediatricians with
privileges at St. John Providence hospitals to
refer after-hours non-emergency parent calls to
a nurse-managed phone triage service. Phone
triage helps parents make appropriate care
choices when their children are ill or injured.
Sometimes the child needs to go to the
Emergency Department, but often they can get
the care they need at home. The Phone Triage
service provides competent, evidence-based
advice from registered pediatric nurses with
more than 150 years of combined experience
and extensive triage training. They undergo
ongoing quality monitoring to participate in the
service.
During FY12, the service took 7,441 phone calls
from nervous parents, advising 1,719 moms
and dads to seek immediate treatment for their
children, with 80 percent going to a SJP facility.
A surprising 77 percent of all callers learned that
their kids could be treated with home care and a
follow-up visit to their primary care physician.
“I create a healing environment for my patients by taking the time to listen and care, and treating them like they are my family.”
— Debra Kurth, Providence Park